Media Genre Theory

Definition of Genre; the word 'genre' is taken from French and and derived from Latin and Greek, in all three language it means; kind, sort, class. Genres have characteristic features that are known and recognised by audiences and it it used to group texts together. Most of the time genre is not fixed and some films have conventions that overlap different genres, such as action-adventure or romantic-comedy.

Conventional definitions of a genre are based on the particular conventions within that theme, such as a theme, structure or style of media, which are shared by the genre, to make that genre unique to others.

Audience Research Discovery

 This is a picture that I created using a website called Wordle. Do make this picture, we watched our music video feedback video to see what words were used by people that we interviewed that day. We then inputted these words into Wordle.com, and the words that were used more frequently are larger, showing the popularity of the different words.

Audience Theory - The Effects Model

The Effects Model explores the general consumption of mass media to the public and how this media effects them and their subsequent behaviour. This model explains how the audience are completely 'passive' and 'powerless' to the message that they are being presented with, normally considered to have more negative effects rather than positive. The audience doesn't have any power in controlling the effect that the text has on them, instead the power lies within the message of the text. The effect is also known as 'The Hypodermic Model', as it is like the audience are being injected with powerful dominant messages and the audience cannot disagree with the message and can only accept it.

The Effects model can be seen in our video in some way, an example that I can think of is how if our music video received millions of views, there are a few props in our video than could be seen as being 'product placement', such as an iPhone or games console. These could sublimely influence an individual to want these products just because they saw someone popular using it. This could be a type of an effects model in a slight way.

Audience Theory - Cultivation Theory

The Cultivation Theory was developed by George Gerbner and is focuses on the long term effects of the consumption of media texts. The theory explains how audiences becomes desensitises by the repeated consumption of violence images in the media whether through TV, Film, Internet etc. There were many films that ere banned in the 70's due to MP's believing that these violent films would corrupt children and provoke them to part take in acts of violence such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Hill Have Eyes (1978). In the 70's these films plus many others were on a banned film list in a time called the 'Video Nasties'.

However the modern younger generation of kids are more exposed to violence images on the media platforms such as the internet and video games, many children are desensitised by these images due to heavy consumption of them.





Cultivation theory suggests that audiences get desensitised to violent images after repeated exposure to them. A good example of this is films that got banned on release such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Hills Have Eyes (1978), however now the younger generation would not see the problem with films such as these as they tend to watch more violent and horrific images that they have become desensitised.  It also states that heavy TV viewers are shaped by the media they watch. This can be applied to music videos in the context that viewers may get desensitised to images such as nudity and violence. For example, genres such as rap and hip hop have a high amount of gang culture in their music videos, which in theory could cause audiences to be desensitised to the idea of drugs, weapons and the gang culture.

Star Theory

The star theory is a idea constructed by Richard Dyer and it is an theory where celebrities are manufactured by companies artificially, but are being represented as being real people that experience real emotions. Companies do this to gain great financial gain from the celebrities because they build that celebrity to fit into a certain genre and demographic. People within that demographic will be interested in that celebrity as they conform to that genre and should get popular very quickly. This is planned by the companies and if the celebrity continues to grow then single, album and merchandise is released so that fans by these so that the companies make a financial gain from the celebrity.

Dyers theory is in three sections which are;
1. Audiences and Institutions
2. Construction
3. Hegemony

Audience and Institutions

This section is about how the celebrity is only put together for a financial gain. The institution that creates the celebrity decides how they market the celebrity around the target audience. When music changes or the artist gets older, companies can then change the image of the artist. There have been many artists that have had an initial target audience to appeal to, and then when the target audience gets older then the company alters the image of the artist; a good example of this is Miley Cyrus. In her early career Miley Cyrus was known as Hannah Montana, a role model from the Disney Channel show 'Hannah Montana'. Once Hannah Montana finished and both her and her fans got older, her record label must have decided to change her image into the teenage turned adult 'bad girl'. This has been seen with many female child actresses who grow up in the music industry or in television, such as Britney Spears. The company will change their image based on their age and current culture such as fashion, dances etc.

Construction
Construction is where the star is purposely built around a particular audience and is not as 'real' as their fans believe them to be, instead they are very artificial. The people that create the image for a celebrity will normally give them a particular feature than separates them from other celebrities in their field. An example of this is Lady Gaga, who has an outrageous fashion sense. This is created by the institution that controls her to make her stand out from the other artists such as Adele, who is not known as a fashion statement.

Hegemony
Hegemony is how the audience relate to a celebrity because of a feature that they admire within them. A fan of the celebrity will idol this celebrity for this trait and some will try to copy the attitude that the celebrity presents. Although this is normally positive because many celebrities give a very positive attitude, some celebrities get involved in negative activities, such as heavy underage drinking, and taking drugs. These then have repercussions of young people getting in trouble with the police because they were trying to replicate an image presented by a celebrity they idolise.