Post 4: Genre as a Media Concept

"How did the notion of category evolve or shift into genre? Whose interests do generic ideas serve?" (McDougall. J)

In the film industry there are different categories of film which appeals to certain audiences and over time film industries have shifted into genre and this allows the film companies to have more knowledge about what the audience wants from films. Different genres of film interests different audiences and film industries use the knowledge they have from this and use it to make themselves more money because they are aware of audience interest.
Film makers used to only look at producing films that would only relate to a particular audience such as women, men or children etc. Films were made specifically in certain categories which they believed the audience they were targeting would like. Over time the notion of categories has developed and this means that the specific categories of film have evolved into many different types of genre such as rom-com, action and adventure, horror etc. In the film industry today there are many different types of genre and even sub genres. They each have a different target audience whether this is male or female or even age etc. Different genre films can appeal to different audiences and genre has allowed different audiences such as men and women to watch the same genre of film. Film companies look at what film genres are being successful with the audience and they would make more films within this genre as they know that they will make money from it.
The audience seeks gratification and pleasure by decoding the encoded meaning in generic films. The film makers who encode the films produce the films for the audience to decode it as this means they are able to unravel the storyline and this allows the audience to become more involved. The way in which film companies make more money from their audience is if they have had a successful film they may go on to make a second one of the same film and example of this is Bridget Jone's Diary. The film company shows that by doing this is easy money to make.
A disadvantage for film companies to keep producing the same genre of film is that their audience may want to watch something new as they feel they have watched the same style of film too many times.
Therefore, the notion categories of genre shifting into genre has made it easier for film industries to know what the audience wants and it makes it easier for them to produce films and it also helps them make more money as they have the knowledge of what it wanted from the audience.


With this new understanding of genre this will help me when coming to make my own short film. The reasons for this is because if I research into what genres of film recently have been most popular with the audience I will look into how I would construct a short film around this area of genre. The reason why this would help is because if you have the knowledge of what is wanted from the audience then your film would be more of a success. Also by have different types of genre such as comedy then this type of genre would enable different types of the audience to be attracted to it whereas, when films were in categories of men, women and children for example, people would not be able to socialise as much because they are set to their own category of film.