Genre Theory, A2 Media

1. S
Genre Theory

2. What is genre?
Tom Ryall – ‘Genre provides a framework of structuring rules’
Deborah Knight- ‘satisfaction is guaranteed with genre’
John Fiske- ‘An attempt to structure some order into a wide
range of texts’
Rick Altman- ‘Genres are defined be semantic elements’

3. Daniel Chandler
'Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the
notion that they constitute particular conventions of content,
for example, themes and settings'.
This means that each genre has certain elements that make
that genre. For the music industry, genres are types of
music like rock, heavy metal, pop, indie, country, classical
ect. Each genre has its own element that defines it and puts
it into a certain genre.

4. Steve Neale
‘Genres are instances of repetition and difference-
difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre'.
He believed that the element of surprise is still very
important in genres. Even though each genre has obvious
conventions, its important to sometimes expand and add the
element of surprise by bringing in elements from other
genres so that it keeps the audience interested. He said that
'there would be no pleasure without difference'.

5. Over time, the music industry has adjusted to this, making it
sometimes hard to put a certain artist into a particular genre
as they may have elements of both rock and pop. In the
music videos it's also hard to identify whether a song is pop
or rock. For example, the Foo Fighters song 'Learn To Fly'
has a music video that is fairly comedic where as the band
themselves are in the rock genre.

6. Foo Fighters ‘Learn To Fly’
The video, portrays more of a pop genre as it is more like a
comedy rather than typical rock-performance-smashing-
guitars genre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQ_3sBZEm0

7. Rock videos usually have dark lighting, feature in a
abandoned building or on a stage, dark clothes, long hair
that covers the eyes, and is often always a performance
video. This Foo Fighters video completely contrasts that as
it is featured on a busy plane, with high key lighting and
casual/comedic clothes. However, the band understand that
they cant completely reject the conventions of a rock video
otherwise it might push away they're rock fans so they've
included a performance with dark lighting video in the TV
screens of the plane to relate top typical conventions of a
rock video.

8. John Hartley
John Hartley said that 'the same text can belong to
different genres in different countries or times'. What
might be classed as 'country' to us might be classed as
'pop' to another country in a different time.

9. Buckingham
‘Genre is not simply 'given' by the culture: rather it is in a
constant process of negotiation and change'. What
Buckingham meant is that genre is forever changing. This is
evident as it relates to Neale's quote of how difference is
very important in genres. Through time, genre has changed
to make it harder to define an artist instantly as one genre in
the music as well as the music videos.

10. Audience’s have assumptions about genre.
The audience expects certain elements in the genre as it is
what they like. Everyone has a favourite genre and when
they know that an indie artist is releasing a new video, they
expect that it will be similar to their previous videos but with
a bit of a difference.

11. Uses and Gratification
Research
Research has identified many potential pleasures of genre
including familiarity and emotional pleasures like empathy
and escapism.
People will watch music videos in a specific genre for the
familiarity with that genre and to escape or empathize.