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The New Zealand Curriculum.

This site has been developed to support The New Zealand Curriculum


Genre

Media products can be classified into categories or genre. 

Media genres appear within a medium (film, television) such as the "horror" film or the television "situation comedy".

Codes and conventions – explains significance of codes and conventions in media studies.

Genre features

Each genre has a set of distinguishing features.

The features associated with a genre's style and content may be for:

  • a particular setting
  • character types
  • technical codes (lighting or music).

You may also find that some media texts blur genre boundaries.

However, a genre is not static – it changes all the time – resulting in hybrid genres sub-genres and changing codes and conventions. A relationship also exists between genres and the societies in which they are created.

Audience, producers, and genre

Audiences recognise these features and therefore expect certain things. For example, at the end of a romantic comedy film, the two lead characters will realise they are in love. Audiences may even select a text on the basis of its genre.

Producers market texts according to genre because a niche audience has already been identified as taking pleasure in that type of text.

Related achievement standards

Level 1
Standard 90992 1.4 – Demonstrate understanding of characteristics of a media genre

Level 2
Standard 91251 2.4 – Demonstrate understanding of an aspect of a media genre

Level 3
Standard 91493 3.4 – Demonstrate understanding of a relationship between a media genre and society




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