GENRE THEORY Chandler and Altman

CHANDLER  Chandler states that genre is a construct designed by media creators in order to categorize their works to make it easy to define their audience and know how to market their products.  However this suggests that genres can become too restricted to all the conventions in them, not allowing them to become diverse.  "Conventional theories of genre tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content"

ALTMAN  Genre offers audiences 'a set of pleasures‘  Genre is an idea that is either ‘inclusive’ or ‘exclusive.  Semantic approach = putting films that have similar plots, characters, shooting style ect in the same genre.

ALTMAN  This theory is similar to Uses and Gratification theory as it also states that media is used to evoke positive emotions from the audience, Blueprint - Genre as a blueprint A formula that proceeds, programs and patterns industry production Structure - Genre as a structure A framework on which individual film are studied Label - Genre as a label A name of a category central to the decision and communications of distribution and exhibitors Contract - A viewing position required by each film genre of its audience Simply - Production (Blueprint) Text (Structure) Exhibition (Label) Consumption (Contract)

AN OVERVIEW  Richard Altman believes that genre is negative, as it restricts space for thought and discovery and turns viewers into passive voyeurs- taking in everything the Media feeds them.  Chandler believes that Genre is neither negative nor positive, but when overused can cause filmmakers to become lazy in their encoding and audiences to become lazy in their decoding of media texts.