Genre

• An analysis of the text would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions.

• But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions.

• There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches.

THEORYGenre

Understanding

• What is genre?

• Why is it important?

• What are the problems with genre?

• How do readers identify genre?

• Why do people want to categorise texts?

• What is the commercial significance of genre?

Write your ideas onto the sheet

• Contemporary theorists tend to describe genres in terms of 'family resemblances' among texts (Swales 1990).

SWALESGenre

How many different ways are there of categorising film?

Create a spider diagram

Ways of categorising texts• Grouping by period or country (American films of the 1930s),

by director or star or producer or writer or studio, by technical process (CinemaScope films), by cycle (the 'fallen women' films), by series (the 007 movies), by style (German Expressionism), by structure (narrative), by ideology (Reaganite cinema), by venue ('drive-in movies'), by purpose (home movies), by audience ('teenpix'), by subject or theme (family film, paranoid-politics movies). (Bordwell 1989, 148)

• While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), locat[ion] (the Western) or sexual orientation (Queer cinema). (Stam 2000, 14).

LOTS!

Understanding Genre

• Genres frame the reader’s interpretation of the text…but are they fixed or given?

• Who is responsible for creating genre?

“Genres are systems of expectations and conventions that circulate between industry, text and subject.” (Neale)

NEALEGenre

Do genres die? Become reborn?

Who is responsible for this? Industry? Subject? or text?

1. Explain how each can be responsible for creating genre

• Steve Neale declares that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' (Neale 1980).

• He adds that 'difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre' mere repetition would not attract an audience.

NEALEGenre

• Christine Gledhill notes that 'differences between genres meant different audiences could be identified and catered to... This made it easier to standardise and stabilise production' (Gledhill 1985, 58).

• In relation to the mass media, genre is part of the process of targeting different market sectors.

GLEDHILLGenre

Is this deliberate?

• Embedded within texts are assumptions about the 'ideal reader', including their attitudes towards the subject matter and often their class, age, gender and ethnicity.

RecapWhat is genre?• SwalesWhy do we want to categorise texts?• GledhillWho is responsible for creating genre?• Neale

Genre frames how we understand texts – explain.

THEORYGenre

What is the ‘ideal reader’?

Embedded within texts are assumptions about the 'ideal reader'

Target audience Genre

attitudes

age gender

class

ethnicity

• Contemporary theorists tend to emphasize the importance of the semiotic notion of intertextuality:

seeing individual texts in relation to others.

CONTEMPORARYGenre

• Roland Barthes (1975) argued that it is in relation to other texts within a genre rather than in relation to lived experience that we make sense of certain events within a text.

BARTHESGenre

• Jacques Derrida proposed that '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' (Derrida 1981, 61).

DERRIDAGenre

• Referring to film, Andrew Tudor notes that 'a genre... defines a moral and social world' (Tudor 1974).

• Indeed, a genre in any medium can be seen as embodying certain values and ideological assumptions.

TUDORGenre

Exam Question

“Genres are systems of expectations and conventions that circulate between industry, text and subject.” (Neale)

Discuss theories of genre in relation to one of your production pieces.

Assessment Criteria [25]

How do you answer the question?

• You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it.

• You then need to analyse it (critical distance) using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout.

• Keep being specific in your use of examples from your project. Either apply the concept to your production or explain how the concept is not useful in relation to your product.

Explanation/analysis[10 marks]

Use of examples[10 marks]

Use of terminology[5 marks]

Assessment Criteria [25]

Level 3Ability to relate your on creative

outcomes to some ideas about media representation drawn from relevant media theory.

Some relevant and convincing examples from the production are offered and these are handled proficiently.

The answers make proficient use of relevant conceptual language.

Level 4Clear understanding of representation

and relevant media theory and can relate concepts to the production outcome, describing specific elements in relation to theoretical ideas.

Broad range of specific, relevant, interesting & clear examples of how your product can be understood in relation to theories.

The use of relevant conceptual language is excellent.

How do you start?

Write a essay plan:Spider diagram theories/concepts

Quotes/referencesLink theories to your production

Sort them into a logical order

Exam Question

“Genres are systems of expectations and conventions that circulate between industry, text and subject.” (Neale)

Discuss theories of genre in relation to one of your production pieces.