Genre Theories - Rick Altman & Steve Neale

Steve Neale

Genre is a term that can be split up into different categories, based on characteristics that they share, for example, settings, story lines, narratives, characters, and themes. In particular, genre can be referred to music videos, and they can be classified as being a particular genre, for example, pop, rock and hip-hop.

Steve Neale states that' genres are instances of repetition and difference;  and 'genres are not systems, they are processes of systemisation'.

He also says that, definitions of genre are historically relative and are therefore historically specific. Believed that there was a system of expectation and that by using own knowledge and applying conventions of the genre, the audience should be able to infer the narrative and storyline of the music video. He also declares that difference is essential to the economy of genre; mere repetition would not attract the audience.

Devlin - Brain washed this is a rap/r&b

All through this video i recognised steve's theory to be correct. An example of this was where Devlin is in front of the camera rapping to the audience, and also when the song gets to the chorus you see see him in the shots.

Rap videos have a lot of emotional parts to it, for example showing an individual solo like devlin or eminem rapping about their life gives the audience a sense of their life and the emotions they are going through. This is common in rap videos

Rick Altman

Genres have characteristic features that are know of and recognised by audiences. Audiences develop an understanding that certain expectations will be fulfilled and they may find pleasure in predicting what will happen next. Producers of generic videos depend on immediate communication with the audience. Easily recognisable features are particularly effective in connecting with an audience. This can prove problematic as audiences need to know what to expect from a genre video but some variation is required as you dont want the audience to be bored or dissatisfied

Altman suggests a semantic/syntactic approach

Semantic is considering convention of that chosen genre that an audience can relate to such as character or peformers, locations, props and camera shots/movements.

For example in a Rap video you would expect to see..

Shots - Low angle and close ups

These examples are from music
vidoes









Locations/settings - On the streets, car parks, in cars


Props - Money, Cars, Houses, alcohol, certain clothes








Syntactic  is the type of narrative an audience would expect from the genre.