AS MEDIA STUDIES 29/09/10

What will I be expected to know for MS1: Media Representations and

Receptions?
Familiarise yourself with the A3 grid – we are going to be using them a lot.

Today we are going to focus on the genre section

GENRE – the word genre derives from French and means ‘type’ or ‘kind’. In the study of
the media it divides texts into easily identifiable categories. It is a way of classifying media
products according to the elements they share.

GENRE CONVENTIONS – these are the repertoire of elements that texts belonging to the
same genre have in common. They are the aspects that an audience expect to see in a
specific media text. They help audiences to recognise the genre and have been built up
over a period of time so that they are easily recognisable (e.g. the use of hand held
cameras in documentary.

HYBRID / SUB-GENRE – a text that combines or subverts the conventions of an existing

genre to create a new one. For example, Big Brother combines aspects of documentary
and game show genres.

All media texts can be categorised according to their key features including magazines,
computer games and radio programmes.

Establishing the genre of a text is essential to the media industry and to producers of media
texts. Clearly establishing a genre allows producers to attract audiences to products.
Audiences recognise the features of a genre and are attracted through recognition,
repetition of conventions and therefore expectation of what is to come. Audiences feel
comfortable when they know what to expect and return often for ‘more of the same’.

The genre of a film is made clear in marketing material, posters and trailers.

Notes on Matt Damon movie poster: Notes on Jennifer Aniston movie poster:

What genre conventions do you notice? What genre conventions do you notice?
 Task:task – this must be completed for
Final
homework and TV
Look at an online is due
guideTuesday
for today
AS MEDIA STUDIES 29/09/10
Create a new
Can you character
establish thefor a specific
genre of the television
programmes from the descriptions given?
The expectations
genre of audiences
(e.g. soap opera, make
police series, it perfectly OK for Troy to burst into song during a
hospital
basketball match
Give at least
drama). twoinexamples
High School Musical, and is the reason why there are sitcom spin-offs –
below:
they have guaranteed success because they replicate the pre-existing successful formulas
Consider:
already accepted by audiences (think Frasier, not Joey!).
 Appearance
‘Genres are good for media industries because their potential audience, and consequently
 Relationships
What do you with others
theirdiscover about
potential the scheduling
profit, timeassessed.’
can be easily of particular(Bell
genres?
et al., 2005: 223)
 Role and function in the text
 Audience
But genres response
don’t stand stillto– the character
they are fluid and changing, adapting to suit society and
different needs of audiences. Producers are always looking for new formulas and adapting
YouWhich
need genres tendatoteaser
to produce be onposter,
daytime television?
introducing
existing ones to reinvent thence the advent
the audience to your character. You will need pose
in recent years of things like the docu-soap,
reality television
yourself and neworgenres
as the character, like computer
rope a very good games and web-pages.
friend/relative into doing it. You could include
background characters in the poster, but your
Are there
primary any
aim is tochannels which devote air
create a representation oftime
whatto specific genres?
audiences can expect of the character if they watch
the series.
Can you find evidence of ‘zoning’ (placing programmes of the same genre together to
Submit the poster next week with a three hundred
encourage audiences to stay watching)?
word commentary explaining who the character is,
their expected behaviour and typical plot lines they
are involved in.
Can you think of any examples of ‘stripping’ (placing programmes of the same genre at the
same every day to get them to routinely watch them)?