1. Learning Objectives:
• Learn a variety of theories on genre.
• Understand how to answer question 1b on
genre.
• Decide which of your productions you
would write about for a question on genre.

2. Jacques Derrida:
“A text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot
be without... a genre. Every text participates
in one or several genres, there is no
genreless text.”
- How important is genre to your coursework
piece?

3. What Is Genre?
‘Genre’ is a critical tool that helps us study
texts and audience responses to texts by
dividing them into categories based on
common elements.

4. Generic Characteristics across all texts
share similar elements...
1. Typical Mise-en-scène/Visual style
(iconography, props, set design, lighting,
temporal and geographic location, costume,
shot types, camera angles, special effects).
2. Typical types of Narrative (plots,
historical setting, set pieces).
3. Generic Types, i.e. typical characters
(do
typical male/female roles exist,
archetypes?).

5. Jason Mittell (2001)
Industries use genre to sell products to
audiences.
• familiar codes and conventions
• cultural references to society + other texts.
Genre allows audiences to make choices
• consume specific products
• focus on a particular

6. Nicholas Abercrombie
'the boundaries between genres are shifting
and becoming more permeable'
-This basically means that media producers
use conventions to create familiar and ‘safe’
products, which are likely to be successful.
-Has your productions used or subverted
this idea?

7. Andrew Goodwin
• conventions that exist within music videos
according to musical genre (performances
in rock videos; choreography in pop)

8. Christian Metz
Genres go through stages:
•the Experimental
•the Classic
•the Parody
•the Deconstruction

9. David Buckingham
“Genre is not simply given by the culture,
rather, it is in a constant process of
negotiation and change.”
- How is your production developing the
genre?

10. Katie Wales
• 'genre is... an intertextual concept‘
- Does your coursework reference other
texts?

11. In terms of your coursework...
• How we define a genre depends on our
purposes (Chandler, 2001).
• What was your purpose and the medium?
• Your audience and the industry sector you
were working within will have defined what
you understood as the genre and sub-genre
of the texts you created.

12. Genre
• How can genre be used to understand
media?
• What genre is the production?
• How useful is the concept of genre in
understanding your work?
• How is your work intertextual?
• How is your production conventional of the
genre?
• How does the media language you have
used fit the genre?

13. Sample Question
“Media texts rely on audience
knowledge of generic codes and
conventions in order for them to
create meaning.”
Explain how you have used or
subverted generic conventions in
one of your production pieces.