Genre Questions

Q- How useful is the notion of genre for explaining the full range of modern media texts?

A- Genre is really helpful and important as it helps viewers to identify with the various media formats.  Genre allows the audience to understand what they are seeing.  It’s also a big help for producers and the media industries – however if media can be categorised into familiar groups which allows them to repeat the production of the genres that are more popular, by using the same key players involved through out the production process to create a bigger profit.  Without genre the audience would struggle to understand what media format they are watching.  Critics are able to use the conventions of genre to establish the hierarchies of value.

Q- Which types of cultural production appear to be the most generic and why? Which appear to be the least generic and why? How do these reflections tie into the work you are doing on your optional modules?

A- It is no surprise that the main genres out there is ‘Horror’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Action’ etc are the productions which appear to be the most generic.  These genres are well known and cover a broad range of formats.  Genres are relied on so much by the media industries to attract a large number of audiences, big Hollywood films for example rely on genre to gain a large audience in order to make a large profit.  Films and programmes which are produced often B movies, which do not have a particular target audience.  They do not need the repetition that bigger industries use to make their money and gain their audiences.  However, user generated content does not need a genre nor a purpose.

I personally think that the most generic production is game shows for example ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’, ‘The million pound drop’ etc.  The reason to why I think these game shows are the most generic at this moment is because any members of the public can join the show which allows the viewers to be able to relate to the contestants on screen, and can even feel the suspense of the game which keeps the viewers drawn in.  There is a range of game shows in the mainstream already since the audience are interested in them a lot, so the tradition of all this has continued which therefore encourages the producers to create more programmes with the same genre but with a different aim to the game each time.  To the audience it seems as if it is different which does relate to the theory of genre’s which are characterised by ‘sameness and repetition’ but also different this was by Steve Neale.

The least generic has to be print media and this is has to be because of the technological development as well as personal preferences.  Magazines which relate to home and lifestyle such as DIY men’s magazines, this has decreased as over the past few years the public have become lazier whereas during the previous years the public did everything for them selves.  So therefore since the public have become lazier which makes it a lot more easier for them to search for user-generated content which can be found on line like YouTube.

Since I am currently studying Format Production I have to say that genre does play a huge part for the construction of the quiz shows which we have created ourselves in a team.  The quiz show which we are creating needs to be repeatable for example the same props, music, sound, set etc.  The use of genre allows us to repeat the show over and over again.  It is definitely important to be able to create a show which works more than once as it increases the profit, genre also attracts an audience.

Q- Does the notion of genre aid our understanding of newer forms of cultural production such as online production? Does Adorno’s thesis still hold true given the ‘democratic’ nature of the internet?

Personally I think we are able to recognise and categorise for ourselves which on-line production falls into which type of genre although it isn’t that obvious as it is with films.