Lesson 2

Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that often make cultural references to there audiences knowledge of society and other texts.
For example 21 jump street is using a cultural reference to there knowledge of a major drug issue in american high schools.

"Genre enables audiences to make choices about what products they want to consume." - Jason Mittle
I agree that this statement is true as after seeing different types of genres audiences can see which ones they prefer to others for example some people may not enjoy the thrill of being scared whereas others may enjoy it. Different types of people have different interests which will cause them to be interested in different genres.

"I was moved"
"On the edge of my seat"
"I want to be made to feel empathy"
"I want to feel tense and uncomfortable"
By all these different responses by the audience the producer can work towards getting the perfect genre

Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences 'a set of pleasures'
Emotional Pleasures - Effects emotions (sad, happy and angry ect)
Visceral Pleasures - can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed or a roller coaster ride
Intellectual Puzzles - movies that make you think for example "whodunit"  or being surprised by the unexpected

The docu-horror we made offers visceral pleasures. Altman (1999) says that genre offeres audiences 'a set of pleasures' one of the things he mentions are visceral pleasures, as it makes you feel uncomfortable whilst watching it, As it uses lighting and sound that would make you instinctively feel uncomfortable

Metz (1974) says that genres go through a cycle of changes during their lifetime
John Ford - Stagecoach (1939)

experimental stage
classical stage
parody stage
deconstruction stage

Nicholas Abercrobie (1996) "suggests that the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable"
David Buckingham (1993) "genre is not simply given by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change."
As postmodern theorist Jacques Derrida reminds us 'the law of the law of genre is a principle of contamination, a law of impurity'

Chandler (2001) - how we define a genre depends on our purposes