Media Concepts- Genre

What is Media Genre?

Genre is a term which can be applied to a variety of forms of media, ranging from music and film, to magazines and books.

Genres split up different media into different categories, based on characteristics which they share, for example narratives, settings, storylines, characters and themes.

In particular genres can be referred to films, and films can be classified as being a particular genre, i.e. horror.

Genres are defined by conventions which can change over time, with new ones becoming invented as well as old ones being modified or upgraded.

Examples of different Media Genres

• Action (Disaster)- ‘Die Hard’• Adventure- ‘Apollo 13’• Comedy- ‘Ace Ventura Pet Detective’• Crime- ‘L.A.’ Confidential’• Fantasy- ‘Toy Story’• Gangster- ‘The Godfather’• Horror- ‘Halloween’• Romance- ‘Casablanca’• Science Fiction- ‘The Sixth Sense’• Social Drama- ‘Schindler’s List’• Thriller- ‘No Way Out’

The list of films down the left have been split up into different genres.

In total there are 11 different genres, each with a different film associated to it, and all of these genres have different conventions, along with ranging storylines, narratives, settings etc…

Altman and Wright’s Theory of Genre

• Rick Altman- believed that function controls how the audience reacts to a film. He believed that genres and thus films held an ideological message and followed generic patterns e.g. Romance conventionally equated to a happy ending.

• Will Wright- believed in myths in media. Similar to Altman, He believed that genre told a story about itself as conventions and expectations allowed the audience to infer what will happen in the narrative.

Steve Neale’s Theory of Genre

Steve Neale states that ‘genres are not systems, they are processes of systemisation’.

He says that definitions of genre are always historically relative and are therefore historically specific.

One popular focus when studying films is the evolution of conventions within a genre, current genres are said to go through phases or cycles of popularity.

Believed that there was a system of expectation and that by using own knowledge and applying conventions of the genre, the audience should be able to infer the conclusion of film.

How do genres relate to our media work both in and out of

lessons? For our A2 media coursework production, our production group focused our products on one main genre, horror.

By focusing the development of the film trailer, magazine front cover and film poster on the horror we used a wide range of horror conventions, these included-

-Horror themed music throughout our film trailer-A photo shoot located in a graveyard with the models covered in fake blood and wearing tattered clothes-A horror narrative and plot- following the development of a cancer disease and zombies being introduced.-The use of colours to signify blood, death and mortality, i.e. black and red

An example of an A2 horror genre media product

This film poster was used to promote our film, The Cure, which we created a trailer for. The horror genre conventions are relatively clear and include-

-The use of red text to connotates death, blood and mortality-The photograph which covers the page of three characters covered in blood-The iron gates positioned in front of the characters-The use of dark colours in the background of the image, simulating darkness and danger.

In Relation to ‘The Red Room’

In relation to our own production, psychological horrors connote violence and death and usually feature a female character as the main victim. We stuck to conventions for ‘Red Room’ and ensured that the action in the narrative was what the audience would expect e.g. dark and lonely rooms and isolation.