Lab+2

How do we differentiate genre? A person does not sit down and look at the similarities of one genre to the next. Instead an person looks at the differentiating factors between the genres. Creating new genres out of "new media" becomes problematic as most "new media" constitutes the convergence of other media genres. So how can one separate two things which share so many similarities.For example a cell phone with Internet access is not a new genre it is a cell phone converged with computer and internet compatible software. The self phone with Internet becomes more of a sub-genre if anything.

 Barack Obama's voting application is the conglomeration of several media forms in order to create an extremely efficient political tool. It combines a cell phone, a planner, the internet and various other features in order to simplify the act of following the Obama campaign. This is genius on Obama's part. Being technologically "slick", as one the creators of the app refers the application too, grabs the attention of a population that is rapidly advancing technologically. The fact that all these functions are available in one application is extremely efficient and places Obama ahead of his competition. He will reach people much faster than his competitor McCain who at this point only uses facebook and twitter. This is new media politics and this is what we will see more and more of.