Genre

A style, type or category of entertainment. Often predictable.

Genre rests around a relationship between similarities and differences.

Genres are very important for institutions, audiences and industries.

“Producers are saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures” – this suggests that limitations are set out when attempting to create a film or moving image that will sell well, and there are difficulties in keeping similar ideas to fit the target audience, but making it slightly different so it isn’t boring or repetitive.

Steve Neale: “Genre is a repetition of differences and similarities to create different stories”

He argues that definitions and formations of genres are developed by media organisations. Furthermore it is seen that genres can change massively overtime, for example in 2002 Spider-man was released, which showed characters with super-human abilities to defeat villains with an opposing power, the films were seen to be comic like and colourful, whereas films from the exact same company like x-men were darker and more rough. But fast forward 20 years, action films are seen to have a lot more aspects of comedy and adventure in them to intrigue the viewers and keep the genre fresh and interesting.

This goes with Neales idea that genre keeps changing as society and humanity changes as well, film genre’s represent what is going on in the current moment in history, that could be opinions, events, politics, anything.

Genre

The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200

Ed Buscombe notes that the ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of film is usually recognised “and largely determined by the nature of its conventions” (1986 p. 15). In other words, the textual nature of the media production. To understand the way in which textual analysis is used to define the genre of a media product, look at any extract from any film.

A key theoretical area that underpins Media Language is the study of GENRE. Genre is a way of thinking about media production (INSTITUTIONS) and media reception (AUDIENCES). Overall, genre study helps students to think about how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. In that media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE and UNEXPECTED

Genres are really important for institutions and audiences.

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .Scorsese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Genre

a style or category of art, music, or literature.

The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.

Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200

Genre rests around a relationship surrounding similarities and differences. Genre’s are really important for institutions and audiences.

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Institutions can become genres in themselves.

Steve NealeNeale believes that films of a type (genre, like romance or horror) should include features that are similar, so the audience know it is a horror film or romance, but also include features that are different, to keep an audience interested. This is his theory of repetition and difference.
 predictable expectationsexpectations that others have too that are set before and also throughout reading a book, watching a film or listening to a song.
reinforced
amplify
repertoire of elementsthe repetition of components that make up the ‘body’ of similar texts – corpus.
corpusbody of similar texts.
verisimilitude
realism
construction of reality
historically specific
sub-genres
hybrid genres
different
familiar

genre

a style or category of art, music, or literature.

  • Genre rests around a relationship between similarities and differences
  • Genres are important for raising expectations from a small snippet
  • Genres are important for institutions and audiences

saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)
  • many movies the same as made by same people (Disney, Warner bro, Universal etc.)

08/02/22

  •  predictable expectations– always behaving or occurring in the way expected.
  • reinforced-strengthen (an existing feeling, idea, or habit)
  • amplify -enlarge upon or add detail to
  • repertoire of elements features of a film that are repeated within a genre
  • corpus– a collection of written texts, especially the entire works of a particular author or a body of writing on a particular subject
  • verisimilitude-the appearance of being true or real
  • realism– the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life
  • construction of reality a phenomenon that we know and is independent, that is, does not depend on the existence of a particular individual
  • historically specific–  Historical people, situations, or things existed in the past and are considered to be a part of history
  • sub-genres– genre that is part of a larger genre
  • hybrid genres–  they share the conventions of more than one genre.

Genre

A genre is a type/category of art, media or literature. It comes from the French word meaning ‘kind’ or ‘sort’. Genre rests around a relationship between similarities and differences. Genres are very important to institutions and audiences.

saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures
– Martin Scorcese, a personal journey through American cinema (1995)

Genres are the same, but different at the same time.

genre

genre rests around a relationship between similarities and differences

What is Genre:

– A style or category of art, music, or literature.

It helps identify how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. Media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE (different) and UNEXPECTED.

Genre is a way of thinking about media production (INSTITUTIONS) and media reception (AUDIENCES)

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Genre is important for institutions and audiences as they become recognisable by their own styles.

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

genre theory

Genre is a type of music, film and anything which can be performed in different ways throughout media. There are differences and similarities, predictable or expected. It should also be unpredictable. Different people see genre in different ways- people who consume it.

Genre should be predictable and go along with the typical genre conventions but should also be innovative and unexpected. Genre is important to the people who make it (INSTITUTION) and the people who consume it (AUDIENCE).

Genre is a way of thinking about media production and media reception.

It helps identify how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. Media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE (different) and UNEXPECTED.

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Institutions : Early Hollywood (an still today) revolved around large corporations which could be identified by certain styles and genres.

 “genres are dependent upon profitability”

genre

A style or category of art, music, or literature. Genre rests around a relationship between similarities and differences. You want something that’s predictable and expected but also innovative and unexpected.

Genres are important to institutions, companies and audiences.

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995).

genre

The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication. – Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200

definition of genre – a style or category of art, music, or literature

genre rests around the relationship of similarity’s and differences/the same and opposite

jybrid genre where two or more genres are in within one subject eg: comedy horror

genre is important to institutions and audiences they are about expecting and innovative things creating reactionary and radical products

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures . . .
the institutional impact upon the genre is that it means that things are the same but different due to the limitations could be the way its made or the budget/money in order to produce the genre always making it different and the way the genre is codified within itself and certain things are made because of it etc

Ed Boscombe notes that the ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of film is usually recognised “and largely determined by the nature of its conventions” (1986 p. 15). In other words, the textual nature of the media production. To understand the way in which textual analysis is used to define the genre of a media product, look at any extract from any film.

genre

Genre

: A style or category of art, music, or literature.

People like to have a general idea of what film they are about to see. But audiences get bored with too much repetition; they like to see a genre change, and evolve by responding to contextual influences to do with the way society changes.

‘Genre’ is the relationship of similarities and differences.

‘Genre’ is really important for institutions and audiences.

As well as a genre, movies also often have sub-genres

‘. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures 
. . .’

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

This quote is saying that all genres are the same but different in some sort of way.

People like to have a general idea of what film they are about to see. But audiences get bored with too much repetition; they like to see a genre change, and evolve by responding to contextual influences to do with the way society changes.

the somewhat dubious assumption that genres shaped by the film industry are communicated completely and uniformly to audiences‘ (Altman 1999, p. 15)

Key Terms:

Steve Neale: Neale believes that films of a type (genre, like romance or horror) should include features that are similar, so the audience know what genre it is, but also include features that are different, to keep an audience interested. This is his theory of repetition and difference.

repertoire of elements: The repertoire of elements are key elements of a film that are consistently repeated throughout a genre. Each genre has its own repertoire of elements which defines it as that genre

verisimilitude: the appearance of being true or real.

construction of reality: Social Construction of Reality. The term social construction of reality refers to the theory that the way we present ourselves to other people is shaped partly by our interactions with others, as well as by our life experiences.

sub-genres: a genre that is part of a larger genre The series is part of the booming ”urban fantasy” subgenre, which features supernatural creatures interacting with ordinary humans in a contemporary city.— Jennifer Schuessler.

hybrid genres: Some media texts are hybrid genres, which means they share the conventions of more than one genre. For example Dr. Who is a sci-fi action-adventure drama and Strictly Come Dancing is a talent, reality and entertainment show. The Twilight films are a hybrid genre, combining horror, fantasy, teen and romance.

levels of verisimilitude:  a theoretical concept that determines the level of truth in an assertion or hypothesis. It is also one of the most essential literary devices of fiction writing. Verisimilitude helps to promote a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief

iconography: the visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation of these.

Steve Neale

The work of Steve Neale is often referred to when discussing genre. One area he looks at, is the relationship between genre and audiences. For example, the idea of genre as an enabling mechanism to attract audiences based around predictable expectations

Thomas Schatz