The document discusses different perspectives on genre in media. It notes that genre refers to recognized categories that media texts can be classified into, depending on codes and conventions. Audiences derive pleasure from media fitting expected genres. Genres are open to change over time, and individual texts may include elements of multiple genres. Genre is important for both media production and marketing, as well as for critics analyzing the meaning and style of different works.

1. NOTES ON GENRE
- John Hartley - Genre is the 'recognized sets into which the output of a medium may be
classified.'
- The acknowledgement of these genres depends on the codes and conventions.
- The pleasure and enjoyment audiences derive from the media often depend on texts broadly
fitting into generic groupings.
- The judgement as to how successful a text is are formed by generic expectations based on
their experience as a media consumer.
- Genre's are open to historical change.
- John Fiske - 'Any one programme will bear the main characteristics of its genre, but is likely to
include some from others, ascribing it to one genre or another involves deciding which
characteristics are most important.'
- John Fiske has argued that ‘Television is a highly generic medium with comparatively few one
off programmes falling outside established generic categories.’
- Genre relates to MEDIA PRODUCTION - operate generically - Certain media companies have
become strongly associated with with products that fall into particular genres.
- Important for commercial success
- Richard Maltby and Ian Craven - 'Hollywood film production is based upon a combination of
predictable elements and variation.'
- Familiarity plays an important part in the promotion and marketing of mediums.
- Generic conventions offer more durable frames of reference, but they also accommodate
change: the variation in plot, characterization or setting in each imitation inflect the audience's
generic expectations by introducing new elements and transgressing old ones.
CRITICISM - Auteurism - Genre was acknowledged in playing a pivotal role in the way popular
films generated meaning.
Lawrence Alloway - 'The personal contribution of many directors can only be seen fully after
typical iconographical elements have been identified'
Edward Buscombe - 'medium of film is predominantly visual, look for our defining criteria as at
what we actually see on the screen.'
Iconography helps provide a shorthand system that allows the experienced generic viewer
instantly to glean a great deal of understanding and information about characters, action and
setting from costume, sets and familiar objects.
Stephen Neale - ‘Genres are not to be seen as forms of textual codifications, but as systems of
orientations, expectations and conventions that circulate that circulate between text, industry
and subject.’