Genre

• Media products can be classified into categories or genre. The word 'genre' comes from the French word meaning 'type' or 'class'. Media genres appear within a medium (film, television) such as the "horror" film or the television "situation comedy".

• A genre can be recognised by its common set of distinguishing features. These features associated with a genre's style and content may be, for example, a particular setting, character types, technical codes (lighting or music). You may also find that some media texts blur genre boundaries.

• 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.

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

Audience

• A media audience may be as small as one person reading a magazine or as large as billions of people around the world watching events, like 9/11, unfold live on television.• Audiences have a complex relationship with the products they consume. 

• Media producers intend audiences to read their product in a certain way, but in actual fact everyone 'reads' and enjoys a product differently due to the individual's background and lifestyle.

• Media audiences may be consuming different types of media at any one time (such as listening to an iPod, watching TV, chatting on the Internet) and be engaging at different levels – for example, the television may be turned on whilst a family has dinner.

• Media consumers are organised into identified groups (based on such things as lifestyle or earning power) by producers, broadcasters, and advertisers who can then target consumers.

• Most media products are produced for profit – so producers and advertisers are more likely to target those groups with spending power, such as urban professionals between the ages of 25–54.

Codes and Conventions

What are codes?

• Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided into two categories – technical and symbolic.

• Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the story in a media text, for example the camera work in a film.

• Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see. For example, a character's actions show you how the character is feeling.

• Some codes fit both categories – music for example, is both technical and symbolic.

What are conventions?

• Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. 

• There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interviewee quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.

How codes and conventions apply in media studies

• Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre – it is not enough to discuss a technical code used such as camera work, without saying how it is conventionally used in a genre.

• For example, the technical code of lighting is used in some way in all film genres. It is a convention of the horror genre that side and back lighting is used to create mystery and suspense – an integral part of any horror movie.

A2 EVALUATION ASSISTANCE

Hi Guys, 

• You must discuss everything in your evaluation, statistically show all data, evidence everything you 

have created with audience feedback, visually, orally, use different styles, video, oral interviews.

• Look at all of the examples we have discussed for more clarification - Aaron & ribbon videos/ blogs.

• Ensure all areas listed on my next few blogs are discussed in your evaluation and relate to your music video, poster and packaging.

Your deadline for the evaluation is Sunday night 22nd Feb 2015

Exam date confirmed for A2

We are now working to this deadline guys.

I will be giving you lots to do over half term as an introduction and a week by week plan will be drawn up.

All evaluations for coursework 

MUST be completed and added to your blog 

by Feb 22nd.

We begin Exam prep completely from Feb 24th 

EXEMPLAR A2 Past Papers

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/79815-question-paper-unit-g325-01-critical-perspectives-in-media.pdf

Help with A2 exam process and responses to questions:

Please check out this link and I will go through them 

in more detail.

http://mediachs.edublogs.org/13-exam-section-a/