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Jose Real
Kneece
Writing 2
11 April 2016
Genres of the Black Lives Matter Movement
Police brutality is not a myth. The Black Lives Matter movement has proven such
statement, and as time goes by, people are starting to believe it. This movement has become
familiar in the American household, and is one of the most controversial topics today. The reason
this became such common topic in the United States is because of the publishing of writing
genres relating to this movement. News articles, entertainment articles, newspapers, songs,
posters, and even letters on the topic of the Black Lives Matter movement have taken over the
media. These writing pieces, however, are all different writing genres. They are uniquely
distinguishable by the audience, purpose, and context of the piece, as well as the conventions the
author uses.In this essay, song lyrics and online articles, two distinguishing genres, will be
analyzed and compared in their conventions and properties through pieces of work revolving
around the Black Lives Matter movement.
In order to understand what makes up a genre, one must first learn what are the
components that separate a genre from one another. Audience, purpose, context, and conventions
are the properties one looks for when attempting to define a genre. The audience typically refers
to people who are intended to read the piece of work. It is a generalized group of people the
author specifically wrote for. The purpose of a piece is simply the reason the author wrote the
work. It is the message or gain of knowledge that the author wants the audience to receive after

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they read the written work. Context just refers to the environment that the reader would read the
work in. It is the occasion as to why the reader would read such piece and under what
environmental situations they would read it in. Conventions are the specific rhetorical devices
and techniques used in that genre. Most genres typically have different conventions between one
another, although they do share some similarities.
Song lyrics are written for the main purpose of allowing the listener of a song to be aware
of what the singer is singing. They are essentially poems that are translated into songs. These
poems can have any type of theme that the writer wants to show the reader, but generally use
themes that may be relatable to one that listens to the song. Songwriters typically write them for
the purpose of later be translated into songs that would eventually be released to the public as a
form of entertainment. However, when song lyrics are read, it is typically whenever an individual
wants to learn what a specific song says, and they read them either online or on a booklet
included in a CD. These properties, however, are quite different from online articles.
Online articles are one of the more common genres that are used by the general public
today. They appear on social medias and on any search in a search engine. They range on topics
from social issues, to interesting facts, to recent news, and sometimes even cooking discoveries.
Journalists and authors of these articles typically write them to people interested in the specific
topic the author is interested in. This genre is more broad with its audience, opening it to the
general public with an access to the internet, but each online article has a specific topic, thus
giving each article a unique audience. Online articles are typically written to inform the reader on
various topics that can range from entertainment, news, social issues, etc. These online articles
appear constantly in social media, which is when most people read them. However, they also
appear in most search engine searches.

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Genres tend to have distinct conventions when it comes to their style of writing. Some
genres have lists, some have steps, there are several with paragraphs, and a couple just have
phrases. Structure conventions allow the reader to clearly visualize the piece of work and lets
them read it in a more productive way. Song lyrics are generally written in stanzas, which are
used to separate the verses from the chorus. Also, stanzas allow the singer to acknowledge the
pauses of the song. For example, in Beyonces Formation, the writer separates You mix that
negro with that creole Make that Texas bama(Beyonce) from I like my baby heir with baby
hair and afros(Beyonce) to separate when the beat of the song changes, which is also an
indication of change from verse to chorus or vice versa. Articles on the other hand, tend to have
quotes in their text as either evidence or reference that relates to their main topic. John-John
Williams quotes Ray Lewis in his article Former Raven Ray Lewis releases video critical of
Black Lives Matter movement and posts We keep screaming black lives matter(Williams).
This quote perceives Ray Lewis thoughts about the Black Lives Matter movement, which is
essential for the article since it revolves around Jay Lewis.. The quotes are written to appeal to
the audience by allowing them to catch the thoughts of other individuals that relate to the topic of
the article. Aside from these structural conventions, writers try to appeal the readers emotionally.
Both song lyrics and online articles try to catch the readers attention. They must use
conventions that appeal to the readers emotions. To do this, song lyrics use repetition, whether it
is through chorus repetition or specific word repetition. In general, songwriters use this technique
to help their audience memorize the song faster. By memorizing the song, their audience will
have the potential of enjoying the song more because of their ability to sing it, which is the
purpose of the genre. In Formation Beyonc repeats the phrase Ok ladies now lets get in
formation(Beyonce), which was meant to become a household phrase in the United States, and

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it certainly did. The audience enjoys such phrase, and invites others to listen to Formation.
Because of such catchy phrases, readers want to understand the rest of the song, thus making
themselves search the song lyrics online. One of online articles most important convention is the
use of headlines. These headlines are the first thing the reader sees, and if they are appealing
enough, they will open the article and read it. For example, Lincoln Blades article has the
headline Bill Clintons Black Lives Matter Comments Were Revealingly Honest, which grabs
the attention of the reader because of the bold commentary. This headline implies that Clintons
comments were justifiable, which most likely baffles the reader and leads the reader to read the
article in order to get closure as to why such comments would be honest. Headlines could be
deceiving, but that is not important to the author as long as there is an audience that reads their
articles. Besides these emotional conventions that the author uses, in order to keep the reader
engaged throughout the entire piece, authors attempt to engage the reader visually.
Whenever one reads a piece of work, there always has to be some sort of visual, whether
it is through images or text, in order to keep the reader engaged rather than bored. Song lyrics
use imagery. The use of this rhetorical device is part of what makes a song so artistic. Without
such vivid language, songs would sound like a singer singing an online news article, which is not
aesthetically pleasing. Imagery helps the audience gain a picture in their mind of what they are
reading, in this case song lyrics. Glory by John Legend and Common is another song that
speaks about the Black Lives Matter movement. The lines They marched with the torch, we
gon run with it now(Legend) and We sing, our music is the cuts that we bleed
through(Legend), penetrate our minds with strong images of people with torches and music
physically cutting human flesh. It contributes to the purpose of the song, which is to entertain
and learn the theme of the song, which is learning and acknowledging the Black Lives Matter

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movement. Online articles, use pictures as one of its conventions. In Blades article, the author
posts a picture of Bill Clinton tussled with Black Lives Matter protesters while campaigning for
his wife Thursday. These images are used to reduce text space and give a visual appeal to the
article. Without them, the article would look overwhelming and full of text that is unappealing to
the reader.

Song lyrics and online articles are not genres that are usually compared. Most of
their conventions, audience, purpose, and context are quite different. Song lyrics use stanzas and
online articles use quotes as structural conventions. The stanzas build on establishing the context
and the purpose of song lyrics while quotes build on the audience and purpose for online articles.
Song lyrics use repetition for a pathos appeal that help build on the audience and context. Online
articles use headlines to invite readers to read these articles, which, like song articles, allow them
to build on audience and context. Visual appeal is seen through both genres through the
conventions of images (online articles) and imagery (song lyrics) that both build on their genres
purpose and audience. Song lyrics overall have a more similar convention to that of poems and
online articles have similar conventions to that of entertainment news articles. However, this
does not intend that there are no similarities between song lyrics and online articles, as
previously proven. Each combination of conventions is what distinguishes one genre from

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another. If all genres had the same conventions, there would not be any types of writing genres,
and most text would be odd and confusing to read.

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Works Cited

Williams, John J. "Former Raven Ray Lewis Releases Video Critical of Black Lives

Matter Movement."Baltimoresun.com., n.p., 8 Apr. 2016.

Blades, Lincoln. "Bill Clinton's Black Lives Matter Comments Were Revealingly

Honest."Rolling Stone. N.p., 08 Apr. 2016.

Beyonc. Formation. Formation. Mike WiLL Made It. 6 Feb. 2016.
John Legend and Common. Glory. Selma. John Legend. Dec 11, 2014.