{"id":1393,"date":"2017-03-29T13:50:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T18:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2017-03-29T13:50:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T18:50:35","slug":"emilys-blog-post-on-genre-conventions-of-listicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/2017\/03\/29\/emilys-blog-post-on-genre-conventions-of-listicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily&#8217;s Blog Post on Genre Conventions of &#8220;Listicles&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The genre that I am studying is a newly popular genre that can be aptly described as &#8220;listicles.&#8221; These are articles that present information to the reader in a list format &#8211; whether or it be a &#8220;best of&#8221; list, geographically-focused list, cuisine-specific list, etc. Unlike traditional articles, listicles are short and to-the-point because the goal is often virality and shareability. In today&#8217;s modern world, readers often do not have the motivation or time to read wordy articles. Thus, listicles rely more on pictures than words; listicles can be read pretty quickly and easily, and so they can act as a quick, recreational read between more demanding tasks.<\/p>\n<p>After doing thorough research and personal exposure to listicles, I have developed a list of formal elements and fuctional purposes of listicles. To further explain listicles in detail below, I will also classify each element or purpose as &#8220;always&#8221; or &#8220;sometimes&#8221; appearing.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Formal elements<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have a title (always)<\/li>\n<li>Are written in a list format (always)<\/li>\n<li>Are listed numerically (always)<\/li>\n<li>Are listed in random order (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Includes items that are focused around a certain subject, region, event, etc. (always)<\/li>\n<li>Include pictures for each listed item (always)<\/li>\n<li>Includes a short paragraph (or even just one sentence) description for each listed item (always)<\/li>\n<li>Include hyperlinks for each item, whether it be to a restaurant website, recipe, etc. (sometimes, but very often)<\/li>\n<li>Is linked to social media (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Include photography credits underneath each picture (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Are prefaced with a brief introduction (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Rates a restaurant, menu item, recipe, etc. (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Includes a price range (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Includes address and contact info of restaurant (sometimes)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Functional purposes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Present information to the reader in a concise, short format (always)<\/li>\n<li>Give the reader a list of recipes or restaurants to try (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Help advertise a food media site or certain restaurants (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Have a social purpose &#8211; shareability amongst friends (sometimes)<\/li>\n<li>Gather likes or views and build traffic (sometimes, but often)\n<ul>\n<li>Also, gain virality (sometimes, but often)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Serves as a distraction\/recreational read (often)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Text examples<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>To study and analyze this genre, I have chosen four listicles . I have carefully created this list to ensure that it had diverse authorial viewpoints by using &#8220;listicles&#8221; from differing websites. For example, while most Spoon University listicles are written by a student-writer, a lot (but not all) of Buzzfeed listicles are written by paid professionals. Also, while some of the authors intended to write a list of restaurants, others talked about recipes, etc.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spoonuniversity.com\/lifestyle\/the-8-best-places-to-eat-dessert-in-austin-for-your-birthday\">&#8220;The 8 Best Places to Eat Dessert in Austin for Your Birthday&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(Spoon University) &#8211; both geographically-focused (Austin) and subject-focused (birthdays and desserts)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spoonuniversity.com\/place\/the-six-best-sustainable-restaurants-in-austin\">&#8220;6 Restaurants in Austin Devoted to Sustainability&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(Spoon University) &#8211; geographically focused (Austin) and advocates for change (sustainability)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/marietelling\/28-delicious-things-to-cook-in-february?utm_term=.acZj90E5l5#.ec3GBdgPLP\">&#8220;28 Delicious Things to Cook in February&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(Buzzfeed) &#8211; seasonality-focused<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/08\/01\/best-cake_n_3684560.html\">&#8220;The Best Cakes, In Order&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(The Huffington Post) &#8211; subject-focused and also differs because here, the ordering\/arrangement of the list matters<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Questions<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What are some topics that you would want to read in a listicle?<\/li>\n<li>How short\/lengthy would you like the descriptions to be?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction The genre that I am studying is a newly popular genre that can be aptly described as &#8220;listicles.&#8221; These are articles that present information to the reader in a list format &#8211; whether or it be a &#8220;best of&#8221; list, geographically-focused list, cuisine-specific list, etc. Unlike traditional articles, listicles are short and to-the-point because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":351,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1408,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/rhetoric-of-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}