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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Argumentative Genres
The main genres to consider in the area of comment are editorials, columns, letters to
the editor, reviews and comic strips, with varying suitability to the development of
multimedia.
Editorial. This genre with an institutional author, which is no other than the news
organization, is rare both in broadcast media and in online-only operations, and as
such, has not been fit, to date, for the development of video, as comment benefits from
some sort of individual face and personal voice.
Column. According to López Pan (1996: 130), this form of journalism is an expression
of the ethos of the author, with permanent formal elements that allow for continuity: a
fixed place where readers can look for it, and regularity in publication. With increased
interactivity, columns have found a new life online as blogs; videoblogs are just a kind
of blog in which entries consist of videos (Orihuela, 2006: 34). They are included here
as they are more widely used for comment than for reports, differently from what
happens with the text-based live blog. Videoblogs in online news media are sometimes
published in relation with or as an extra to audio podcasts.
Letter to the editor. The purpose of traditional letters to the editor, that of giving
feedback on published editorial content, is now shared by more spontaneous
comments to stories, but the interface in which standalone videos are presented
sometimes prevents these to be posted, and other times, comments to a video will
have to be made under the text story. Distributed publishing means that the reaction to
a video can’t be measured only within the website; users’ actions -including links,
mentions, replies, ratings and comments- in social networks and format-specific
distribution platforms such as video aggregators. The audiovisual equivalent of a letter
to the editor would be similar to that of a user-generated videoblog, usually in the form
of a talking head expressing a view, with the clear purpose of publication.
Review. The information about a consumer product or a work of art, sometimes more
of a critical evaluation, benefits from the possibility of showing an actual clip from it or
about it, side by side with the text or with a voiceover. This addition may add to the
usefulness of the piece, offering a taster of what the user can expect, and in the case
of products or services, also demonstrating how they look like and how they work.
Some websites specialize exclusively in this sort of content, whereas it can also be
found in news websites.
Comic strip. In this genre, the shift is from illustration to animation, be it in two or three
dimensions. The purpose of the comic strip may also be served by real image videos
edited in a humorous way, usually by the addition of music or the yuxtaposition of
decontextualized clips, conferring new, funny meanings to the footage.
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