Post 4- Genre as a media concept

Genre theory is a concept that is widely used throughout the media world, however it’s not just a plain simple idea but also one that causes much controversy between many critics and audiences. Genre theory and concepts are widely recognised and nearly everyone has their own interpretation of what they think it means and the different ways they can apply it to their work. For example Chandler recognises genre as ‘ways to promote organisation but it has no way to classify works as it is always evolving’ where as work from Robert Symth quotes that genre ‘have patterns of fixity'.

From looking at many different texts it’s clear that genre is seen as a way of putting different media works into categories or lists. This can then be used as a way of analysing a text and making it easier to differentiate between two different genres,  For example in films today there are many different genres such as romance, horror, sci-fi and many more that all have their own conventions.  This is supported by Chandler who quotes that, '...by creating categories promotes organisation rather than chaos'. By creating these different categories (genres) producers can get an understanding of what  audiences are paying to go and see, by looking at box office profits. From looking at the genres that are in high demand by the producers this starts to  create more films of the same genre knowing from research that it will attract a wide audience, bringing in a large profit. McDougall quotes that ‘consider the reasons not only for the success of the genre but the conditions for the genre possibilities: that is, the interest served by it’s labelling’. I agree with this quote completely as within the different formats it gives producers and directors a chance to put their own personal stamp on their work in that genre. However ,McDougall could also be trying to say that producers use genre as a way to help market the film in a way the audience will understand. This is done through the use of conventions as the audience will have an understanding and recognise conventions from previous knowledge. Yet films also have to be creative and stretch the genre slightly to keep it original and interesting for the audience.  


There are many conventions within different genres that producers have to establish so they can become identifiable to the audience. Factors should be analysed to identify familiar conventions such as, narrative structure, themes, location, use of lighting, music and language. These conventions are quoted by Altman who says ‘the text in a genre share key characterises’. As long as a producer follows these conventions the film genre will become recognisable to the audience. Another quote from Altman said ‘the genres are defined by producers and are easily recognisable to audiences’.  This shows that as long as these conventions are seen throughout the film it should be appealing to a wide audience. However if all films had the same story lines, lighting and characters the genre would become boring to the audience and the genre would soon die out. To prevent this from happening genres have to be adapted and changed, meaning directors have to become creative and put a twist into the storyline to keeps people attention.



Producers have to be careful in what they would like to produce/direct, as they have to try and predict what they think the audience will want to see, yet, still keeping the traditional conventions. This statement is backed up by Neale whom quotes ‘genre theory is to do with circulation between industries, media texts and audience. This leads to regulated variety’. 


I can relate to this quote to when we created our opening sequence during the course work last year.  Our group tried to involve two different genres Horror and Mystery as well as promote it to two different audiences. The two different audiences where older teens as this was the age of our main character and could find it relatable, our second were adults who could have an interest in murder mystery stories.


The genres are 'ideological’ this is a quote from Altman which I agree with.  If I think of ideology, as have three points on a triangle; the idea, people and power, the people in the triangle have to be in a high class and have large amounts of power for example the producers or directors.  These people have the power and money to push their products to the biggest audience they can. In many films today we see many different genres combined in just one film. This is a very clever thing for a producer to achieve, as it will be appealing to a much wider audience and will bring in a much larger profit.
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After looking at many different approaches to genre theories and the different ideas that people have towards this concept, I now have much more in depth knowledge of how genre can affect a film production. When it comes to starting to think about my own short film that I will be creating I will think carefully about what genre I would like to produce and what kind of audience that will appeal to. I will have to think about the different conventions I will be using as well critically thinking about ways in which I can twist and change them to make the story line my own and not be copying any previous films of that genre. From thinking back to my previous task last year to create and opening sequence, I feeling that as a group we didn’t spend enough time thinking about what conventions we should be following and what kind of audience it will appeal to. If we had thought more carefully about these things I think our opening sequence could have been a lot stronger.