Genre Analysis

Barry Bonds, former professional baseball player, who owns the all-time homerun record.  Marion Jones, five time Olympic medalist.  Lyle Alzado, former professional football player, and Super Bowl champion.  Floyd Landis, cyclist who won the 2006 Tour de France and Alex Rodriguez, one of the best all-around baseball players of all-time and is also the highest paid baseball player ever.  What do all these different athletes from different sports have in common?  They all cheated by using performance-enhancing drugs.  All of these athletes (and more) were caught during the 21st century when sports finally started testing for steroids.  From the late 1980’s to the late 2000’s, this time period was called the “Steroid Era”.  Steroids may make a person a better athlete but there are consequences to it whether you get caught or not.  Careers can be tarnished (Rodriguez), records can be tainted (Bonds), medals can be stripped (Jones) and lives can be taken (Alzado).  Children or future athletes can also be influenced by these wrong doings.

            In the first genre the audience of this article is for baseball fans and baseball athletes. It gives the audience an overview of the subject, testing of the steroids and the fallouts athletes had.  This article talks about the baseball steroid era that have believe to occur from the late 1980’s and ends around the late 2000’s.  In this era many baseball players tested positive for banned steroid substance abuse.  What made this era more shocking were the well-known and popular players that tested positive; such as Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.  These players all broke homerun records during the steroid era and now those records are tainted.  Their careers are also tarnished and no longer taken seriously.  The purpose of this article is to tell everyone, not just baseball fans or athletes, not to take steroids because it can change the way that you are looked at in a negative way.

            The second genre consists of looking at the negative effects steroids can place on an athlete not just career wise but life wise.  The purpose of this video is to show what steroids can do to the human body.  The video is only one minute but it gives enough information to know about the dangers of using steroids.  Athletes take steroids to improve and increase muscle stimulation, which is a temporary good, but illegal mechanism.  What athletes do not know is the harmful effects steroids can lead to.  There are more negative effects on steroids than positive effects.  According to the video, baldness, liver damage, strokes and blood clots can ensue after taking these performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs do not just have a physical side effects but also emotional side effects by causing sudden mood swings for example aggressive behavior. Finally the video ends with showing Lyle Alzado, a former football player who was known for using steroids for most of his life.  Alzado died when he was only forty-three, due to brain cancer.

            These two genres both establish a connection with athletes to not engage in using steroids. The first genre goes into detail with baseball players while the second genre displays all types of athletes.    Both inform the audiences on why steroids are harmful in a physical and emotional way. 

            The online article was from ESPN, The Worldwide Leader in Sports, which makes it a credible article.  There is no one specific author because various authors keep the article updated on the situation.  The article gives information on what has happened during the steroid era.  It provides facts about the homerun records that were broken and how steroids tainted baseball.  The emotion it sets is untruth, because fans of the players who tested positive for banned substance feel betrayed that their favorite player or role model were cheating to get ahead of the competition.  Evidence shown in the article about the dishonest players was the punishments that they received, whether it was suspensions from playing or addressing congress about their wrong actions.

            Emotion in the second genre comprises of fear with a dark song that you can hear in the background.  The mood is slow on showing different athletes who have used anabolic steroids and the after effects they had when caught using them.  This tries to intact fear into the audience so they won’t use steroids.  The video is a Public Service Announcement which makes a credible.  The support that the video makes is showing well known players that have used steroids, a list some of the side effects that can occur while taking steroids and at the end a link if the audience member needs more information on the topic.

            Both of these two genres put a negative emotion of facts that can happen if athletes consume steroids.  They give warnings to the audience and give examples of what can transpire.  The second genre has more pathos in it while the first genre has a better credible source. 

            The structure of the first genre contains five columns that have different storylines that were in the steroid era.  The five columns are Overview, which gives the summary of when the steroid era started and how it changed Major League Baseball.  The next column is Investigation, which discusses scandals that baseball faced during the steroid era.  Testing for performance-enhancing substance barley started in 2003 with a hand full of baseball players failing the test.  Since then, failing has steadily been dropping. Hearings were the congressional hearings some baseball players had to face when they were caught using steroids, and the final column is Fallout, which talks about what happened to the players after everyone discovered they were using steroids.  These five columns had no limitations on what it needed to say.  It facilitates its purpose by giving all the information out about what occurred during the era.

            The structure of the video genre was based by showing the audience before and after pictures of athletes who had used anabolic steroids and seeing the muscle they all build.  Then it displayed a list of negative side effects that anyone can claim if they used the drug.  Finally it ends the video by giving a helpful link.  Since this genre is a video, there are no limitations that could have prevented for giving information or facts.  The genre facilitates its purpose by giving the harmful side effects of using steroids and providing a supportive link for additional information.

            Both of the structures that these genres enforce are facts about anabolic steroids.  One genre is just about the illegal consequence while the other genre is about body consequences.  There are no limitations in the article because the authors keep updating the paper frequently.  Either way both deliver the negative effects on steroids.

            The formality of the first genre is English text, but it does have a lot of names of players in which some people may not know.  The specialized vocabulary that is used are abbreviations such as BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative), PEDs (Performance-Enhancing Drugs), or HGH (Human Growth Hormone).  The article shows the picture of the recent top story that is happening right now that involves with steroids.

            The second genre’s language is formal because all the audience has to do is see the pictures and read the text that is provided.  The specialized language that is used are pictures of athletes and a display of negative side effects.  There is also a music beat that the audience can hear in the background.  The visual and audio language features come together to make the video.

            The relations of both these genres are the text that it contains, the helpful links they recommend and the same vocabulary that is used, but the video genre has more language features by putting up pictures and music.  The first genre goes more into detail on their text and gives the audience more reading options to see all the players that have been punished for using anabolic steroids. 

            In conclusion both these genres expressed the same views but just in a different rhetorical appeal.  The first genre just talked about and provided the facts while the second genre looked at the well-known players of the steroid era and called out for warnings for using this dangerous drug.  Steroids will do more harm than good in the long run.  They may make an athlete better on the field but it will destroy them off the field mentally and physically.  There are now harsher punishments if you are caught using them:  Starting with heavy fines to mandatory suspensions and even lifetime bans.  This has caused players to think before doing and trigger a decrease in athletes using performance-enhancing drugs or testing positive for them.