Genre and its Application: Greek Life

Taking a look into Greek life, can offer insight on one of the most complex networks of
communication, between students, one can find on a college campus. Florida States Greek life a
shining example of said network, as it takes advantage of multiple genres of both formal and
informal communication including social media and digital, in person, and written
correspondence in order to interact with one another. Fraternities, including Tau Kappa Epsilon
(TKE), take advantage of these many media to communicate both within their own organization
and to reach out to their community of Greek life as a whole.
Before one may discuss genres of communication and their application within a
community, one must have a grasp on what genre is. Braziller and Kleinfeld define genre as a
compositions kind, category, or sort. Genres give us a way to categorize or describe types of
compositions (5). If viewed by this definition, genre can be a mass of different overlapping
categories, including informal, formal, comedic, informative, and many more.
The genre of communication is distinguished by ones purpose for the communication,
which plays, also, into determining the tone of the communication and the mode and media in
which a member of a community chooses to communicate. Genre also employs a mode which is
how a composition is experienced by readers/viewers/listeners (Braziller and Kleinfeld 11),
and media which is the delivery mechanism of the composition (Braziller and Kleinfeld 12).
These two elements focus on the delivery of the information that is being communicated
including differing between written, heard, and visual information, and differentiating between
whether the information is presented in a digital form, print form, or other form. Other elements
of genre include style, which dictates the way that the person making the communication, writes,

or speaks their information, and design which is used to describe how a composition looks
visually, whether it includes images, graphics, headers, special font, or illustrations of some kind.
Within TKE, day to day communication comes in multiple formats, the most obvious
being the weekly chapter meetings held at the fraternitys house every Sunday evening. There
are two types of meetings including Formal and Informal chapter, formal including the use of
ritual that is sacred to the fraternity and informal that is held as more of a conference style
meeting of the chapter. The meetings are used to have a face-to-face discussion between the
executive board of the chapter and its members to discuss the affairs of the chapter including
upcoming events, dates, and deadlines.
They employ a genre called parliamentary procedure for holding these meetings in which
they use this method to vote on any issues that may surface as well. By using this genre, the
fraternity is able to effectively communicate information from the executive board members to
the general mass of the fraternity and the members of the fraternity then get the chance to relay
back to the executive board, their opinions on the issue at hand. Using this process also
maintains the formality of the meetings by allowing the executive board members to stay very
much in control of the flow of the discussion. The process of parliamentary procedure moves
through multiple phases in which the Epiprytanis, which is a Greek word that means the Vice
President of Internal Affairs, follows a script that allows motions for a pros and cons session,
in which the members of the chapter alternate listing facts about the issue at hand that are both
positive and negative, and allows to motion for a vote to be made on the issue at hand. Seeing as
the flow of the conversation is constantly being voted on by the members of the chapter, it gives
the members control to discuss the issue as much as they feel necessary, before the conversation
is shifted. By having one main officer preside over this process aids in the upkeep of formality

throughout the entire process of the chapter meeting. The parliamentary procedure process
creates an efficient system of communication that allows the fraternity to flow from topic to topic
in a very streamlined process, and allows for each topic to receive a fair amount of discussion,
before moving on to the next topic.
These meetings are private and closed only to initiated members of the fraternity, thus
upholding the private audience of members of the organization only. When you look at internal
communication for an organization, the audience is very clearly meant to be members of said
organization.
They also use a mass text messaging app, through which the Grammateus, or secretary,
for the fraternity can draft a message with important reminders on days of major events, and the
message is sent directly to the text messages of every brothers phone. The purpose of these
forms of communication are to disperse information in a formal manner so that the chapter can
remain up to date with important information, thus falling into a genre of formal communication.
This message is presented in a text media via a digital mobile application for the mode, and is
thus traditionally text only. The formality of the message is congruent with that of the forms of
communication we have when we are in our weekly chapter meetings as the text message is used
to relay only important information.
Almost every fraternity also uses Facebook as a form of formal communication by
making an Official feed in which the fraternity communicates important information on
upcoming events, reminds the members of issues discussed in chapter, and provides an outlet for
executive board members and executive chairmen to communicate with the chapter. The open
platform that Facebook provides allows for a multitude of styles of communication including
text posts, pictures and information, videos, and the uploading of important documents or

calendars to the page itself. These many forms of formal communication enables the fraternity
to run at an elite level of efficiency, because the repetition and availability of the information
across multiple platforms keeps the important information being communicated fresh at all
times. Essentially, the members are constantly reminded, and thus, any actions that must be
taken, or tasks that must be completed, are constantly appearing in the lives of the members until
said action or task is completed.
While Greek life does take advantage of these many forms of formal communication,
many organizations, like TKE, also have more relaxed and informal forms of communication
including the use of Facebook to create an informal feed, and applications like Groupme, a group
messaging app over which photos, videos, and text messages can be sent to specific groups of
members.
Many organizations also use Facebook to create a separate feed from their official
business feed, to have a page that can be used for the enjoyment of the members within the
organization. The Facebook feeds can be host to massive text posts on serious matters, shared
articles about various topics, ranging from a satirical article from the Onion to an article about a
major news event such as primary elections results, or pictures and videos of the antics of the
members of each organization. Fraternities also use group messages on the Groupme plat form
to communicate on a more relaxed, day to day basis with the purpose of planning going out on
weekends, connecting a pledging class into one consolidated group with everyone, or just to have
a feed where the members may post funny articles, pictures, memes, videos, and other forms
of media to just share them with friends.
The purpose for these forms of communication are solely for the enjoyment and leisure of
the members of the organization. By enabling an outlet for sillier information and more relax

communication, college students within the organizations can have a casual method to connect
with each other, to laugh and to just enjoy a funny video throughout their day. This
communication is a way that fraternities, can stay connected throughout their days and continue
to grow as a friend group, even when they are not participating in social events together.
Greek life also communicates in formal genres between organizations and to the
community that surrounds them, the college campus, through a variety of other methods
including presentations given by members of fraternities and sororities to other organizations in
person that discuss their upcoming philanthropic events. When a Greek organization has an
upcoming philanthropy event they often assign members of their chapter as reps for the other
participation organizations, and send these reps to give short presentations to the members of the
participation organization detailing what their event is, when and where it is being hosted, and
the cause it is supporting. This use of a face-to-face medium upholds the formality of the
communication and promotes professional relationships between organizations. These in person
meetings between representatives and the individual fraternity chapters create a very intimate
environment between the representatives presenting their information in an informative genre,
and their audience being the fraternity that the rep for their own philanthropic event.
Along with doing in person presentations, most organizations will also set up an event
page on Facebook providing the basic details of the event and the cause, as well as using it to
distribute registration information. The Epiprytanis of Tau Kappa Epsilon Derek Schmidt spoke
about a Facebook feed used for the communication of the Internal and External Philanthropy
Chairmen between all of the fraternities and sororities stating Pinned on the page is a document
that lists all of the IFC and Panhellenic organizations and their chairmen for the two positions.
Also on the page every organization will advertise for their events posting links to any event

pages and registration packets that they may have uploaded. When asked about what kind of
genre the communication would fall under he stated I guess if I had to label it, it would be a
form of professional communication.
The style and design of mass external advertising and communication also vary by
organization. This implementation of style and design can be seen best when viewing how
Greek life advertises events such as parties and philanthropy events. Halloween party names like
TEKE Freak, PIKEs of the Caribbean and ZBTerror, are commonly reused party names for
fraternities. Almost every philanthropy event also has a catchy title such as Kappa Alpha Thetas
Kisses for C.A.S.A. which is a 5K walk/run that supports local Court Appointed Special
Advocates, which represents abused and neglected children in court. Greek life also reaches out
and takes advantage of Facebook profile and banner picture slots. Between Fall and Spring Rush
recruitment, parties, and different philanthropies, each of which get their own custom profile or
banner picture adaptation that advertise the event, the members of these organizations are
constantly being required to change their social media personas to advertise for their cause. By
coming up with and applying these catchy names and tags for events, Greek life organizations
both peak interest in learning more about the event, and allow for merchandising for these events
in the form of selling t-shirts for events. These simple advertising pitches are sometimes even
more effective at drawing attention to the events, than it is to send representatives out or to have
a group of fraternity gentlemen walk around advertising for their sick rager of a party coming
up.
When an organization is making announcements, speaking to chapters, and advertising
event pages for philanthropy events, not only does that information reach the part of its audience
that is Greek life as a whole, it also can branch out to entire college campus, even entire

communities, along with any people afflicted or affected by the cause that the event is
benefitting. As an example, TKE does philanthropic events every semester that benefit St. Jude
Childrens Research Hospital, in which all proceeds go towards the foundation. This
environment of supporting an outside source attracts the larger audience which can include the
entire university that the chapter is located at. During the Lambda Iota chapter of TKEs last
philanthropy event, TEKE Week, there was week of events that were used to raise money for St.
Jude including a share it night at Pomberry Yogurt on Florida States campus, during which
anyone who was interested could go to Pomberry, and order food, knowing that 10 percent of the
money on their order would be donated to TKE to donate to St. Jude. So as TKE advertises for
events on public platforms, such as Facebook, through in person communication, and with
advertisements posted around the Florida State campus, they provide a wide variety of forms of
communication between the organization itself, and its surrounding community of The Florida
State University.
And this is just the perspective of insight from one Greek life organization, and how they
communicate internally and externally that has such a network of layers. Many other Greek
organizations have even more complex formats, and employee different genres to communicate
to their members. The variation in style, mode, and media, create vastly different responses from
their respective audiences and thus create a successful matrix of efficient communication, and by
employing this vast web of communication, Greek life as a community is able to function at its
highest level of efficiency. Without genre to guide the communication and to vary the
communication between formal, informal, in person, over digital medium and in the variety of
other forms, the communication would be ineffective as a whole.

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