Generic conventions refer to traditional attributes of a genre that producers will use in order to ensure that the audience will understand what the genre is. These can range from visual to audio devices.

For example, horror films will generally have a similar setup :

  • Dark lighting
  • Intense music
  • A threatening individual or presence
  • Vulnerable characters
  • Inevitable death of certain characters

Producers will use various horror conventions to scare the audience and so allow the audience to understand the horror genre.

Another set of generic conventions are those used in ‘Gameshows’. Gameshows will typically be set within a studio, have a live audience, a presenter and a theme song. These will allow the audience to understand that the media they are watching is a gameshow.

Generic conventions allow the audience to learn immediately what type of media they are watching and so can decide whether they are interested in it or not. This is evident through the audiences ability to flick through channels and distinguish between a soap, gameshow or the news within a few seconds.

What is Genre?

The word Genre means ‘Type’ in French. Genres are used in Media because it makes communication possible.

It is a way of getting the audience and producers to negotiate. With Genre the audiences response determines how successful a media text will be. When the media repeat a certain genre again and again the audience can become bored, therefore it is the producers (encoders) job to know what the audience understand in terms of codes and conventions, before they produce their desired product.