Discuss one of your production pieces in relation to the concept of Genre?
Genre is a way of categorising a text through style and form, while genre is more commonly applied to discussions of film, the concept can actually be applied to any media text as a way of explaining categories and paradigms. I am going to use it here to discuss my website which I produced for the AS portfolio.
It would be simple to class the similarities and differences in websites to make them fit into a specific genre, although Rick Altman applies this to films, it could be useful in websites, this is called the semantic approach (1995).
Industry websites have certain genres because each industry sector has a different function, so their websites must serve a different purpose. Most websites do function as a marketing tool, although it would be inappropriate to assume this was their only function. I can support this as a fact as marketingcharts.com there a chart titled ‘Top 10 Site Genres’. The list includes website genres such as Finance, Sport and Recreation, Home and Garden and Entertainment. Email is the top site genre, closely followed by General Community.
So the marketing industry is already categorising sites, presumably because it helps them sell
advertising space on them, Genre has also been a key marketing tool for film promoters because
they can connect films with big advertisers and with audiences.
Campaign websites are easily identified by their paradigms, they all have a common theme that is
to help others. The websites must use iconography that catches the audiences attention and gets
them involved in the website and the campaign they are fighting for, this is made easy by using a
certain structure. My website theme was regonisable as we used an attractive and eye
catching structure to involve adults and make them aware of children that are at a disadvantage.
The iconography made my site recognisable as belonging to the campaign genre because the images were of the
children our campaign had helped looking happy. For example, my homepage features a video of a young girl
swinging on a swing whilst facts of our campaign run along the bottom.
From my homepage there are useful links such as the 'Events' page which shows the latest events of what my charity
have been up to, also pictures of the children that have been helped. In addition to this you can find persuasive
language and key verbs such as 'Donate', 'Help' and 'Support' which are expected in this genre.
Audiences like site genres because it helps them navigate sites quickly. They expect a site in a particular genre to
contain certain and recognisable paradigms. For young people, the assessment of the site may also be based on
how inventively the genre paradigms are used.
The concept of genre is therefore applicable to websites and it is already extremely important to both the Institutions
their audiences. Both are given a sense of safety by genre. The institutions have financial safety knowing they are
investing money on a format that already works. For site visitors, the safety is of having their expectations of the navigation experience met by the site they choose to visit.
