Cambridge Technicals study of Digital Media - Genre

1. Genre Theory
L.O: to explain how institutions and audiences
use genre and evaluate its effectiveness.

2. Genre
• All genres have sub genres (genre within genre).
• Barry Keith Grant (1995) They are divided into more
specific categories that allow the audiences to identify
them specifically by their familiar and what become
recognisable characteristics.
• Steve Neale (1995) however states that genres are not
‘systems’ they are processes of systematization i.e. They
are dynamic and evolve over time.

3. Generic characteristics
across all texts
• Typical mise-en scene/visual style (iconography, props, set
design lighting, temporal and geographic location, costume,
shot types, camera angles, special effects.)
• Typical types of narrative (plots, historical setting, set pieces).
• Generic types of typical characters.
• Typical studios/production companies.
• Typical personnel (directors, producers, actors, stars, auteurs
etc.)
• Typical sound design (sound design, dialogue, music, sound
effects).
• Typical editing style.

4. Jason Mittell (2001)
• Genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries
of media texts and operate within industry, audience and
cultural practice as well.
• Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media
producers use familiar codes and conventions that very
often make cultural references to their audience
knowledge of society and other texts.
• Genre also allows audiences to make choices about what
products they want to consume through acceptance in
order to fulfill a particular pleasure.

5. Rick Altman (1999)
Genre offers the audience a set of pleasure;
• Emotional pleasure: The emotional pleasures that are offered
to the audiences of the genre films are particularly significant
when they generate a strong audience response.
• Visceral pleasures: Gut responses are defined by how the films
stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience.
This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed or a roller
coaster ride.
• Intellectual puzzles: Certain film genres such as the thriller or
the whodunit offer the pleasure in trying to unravel the
mystery of puzzle. It is derived from deciphering the plot and
forecasting the end or being surprised by the unexpected.

6. Strengths of genre theory
The main strength of the genre theory is that everybody
uses it and understands it:
• Media experts use it to study media texts.
• The media industry uses it to develop and market texts.
• The audience uses it to decided what texts to consume.
The potential for the same concept to be understood by the
producers, audience and scholars makes genre a useful
critical tool. Its accessibility as a concept also means it can
be applied across a wide range of texts.

7. Genre development
Genres develop and change as the wider society that produces
them also changes. This process is known as generic
transformation.
Christian Metz (1974) argues in his book ‘Language and
Cinema’ that genres go through a typical cycle of change during
their lifetime.
• Experimental stage – What is in the genre is being defined.
• Classic stage – Conventions of the genre are recognizable.
• Parody stage – Made fun of through parody.
• Deconstruction stage – Genres are taken apart and recreated.
Hybrids develop.

8. Richard Dyer’s Star
Theory (1975)
• Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth
subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres.
• Genre in music videos are an example of the use of Richard
Dyer’s star theory. A star is created to appear in a certain way
and part of this construction is the genre they fit into, whether
that be pop, rock, hip-hop, country etc…
• The main purpose of this is to promote the persona of the star.
• They don’t have to be literal representations of the song or the
lyrics.

9. Genre themes
David Brodwell (1989) states that any theme may appear in any genre.
• Horror films for example are basically just modern fairy tales and
often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules
are punished (the characters who have sex always die first).
• Fear of the unknown – the monster is the monstrous other e.g.
anything that is foreign or different.
• Sex = death – in horror movies, sex is immoral and must be
punished, werewolf movies can be seen as a metaphor for puberty
and vampires can be seen as a metaphor for STDs or rape.
• The breakdown of society – post-apocalyptic movies are about our
fear (or secret desire for) of the breakdown of society. The collapse of
civilisation results in human kind reverting to their animal instincts.
• The duality of man/personal journey – the conflict between man’s
civilised side and his savage primal instinct.
• Segregation and alienation – two opposing cultures of beings going
through a struggle to survive.

10. Themes for a youth
audience
Some music videos have themes for a more youthful audience:
• Teen angst
• Rebellion – conformity versus non-conformity
• Romance
• Sex/Loss of virginity
• Nostalgia – for the innocence of youth
• Nihilism the belief that there is no future
• Coming of age rituals (e.g. prom, losing your virginity, falling in love)
• Tribalism – popularity versus non-popularity
• Bullying
• Juvenile delinquency – moral panics and teenagers as the folk devil
• The currency of cool
• Hedonism living purely for pleasure
• Friendship

11. David Buckingham (1993)
Genres are not fixed and are in a constant state of change
and are evolving over time. Hybridity (melding together of
two genres) has become more common as time has gone on.
‘Genre is not… simply “given” by the culture: rather, it is in
a constant process of negotiation and change.’