`Week 11 (ch13, ch14)
Media genres, formats and texts
Genre definition
• Any category of content identified by: form, style or function.
• Function of genres:
◦ to give us usable and recognisable: categorisation, hierarchy, definition or scope
• Patterns
• Cultural trends
• Reflect norms that live in society
• What we expect from a particular message
Genres: news
• News as narrative
◦ Most media content tells a story with a patterned and predictable form.
▪ Linking actions in a logical, sequential or causal way
▪ Providing the elements of people and places that have a fixed and recognisable
character
▪ News article: inverted pyramid.
• Starts with most important information
• Lesser important follows
• Enables a writer to remove parts of the story without having to rewrite it (if more
important articles pop-up and there is not enough space)
▪ Disappeared genres:
• Fake dialogues
• News song
◦ Factual reporting vs. Storytelling.
Example: Young Adult genre
• No specific books for teenagers. To encourage young readers to read and use libraries YA
genre has been invented.
• Not as complex
• Popular genre since 1970s
The Cultural texts
• The rise of cultural studies and its convergence had lead to a new form of discourse.
• Text refers to
◦ physical message itself
◦ The meaningful outcome of the encounter between content and reader
Audience theory and research traditions
What’s the audience
• Four types of audience:
◦ People assembled: proximity, location, time (people going to a lecture)
◦ People addressed: inscribed audience (people referred to in the message, not per se
target audience)
◦ Happening audience: ad hoc/impromptu (spontaneous speeches/street musicians, did not
choose to be part of audience)
◦ Hearing audience: participatory (when you can ask questions or respond)
, Concepts of audience reach:
• Based on reach media companies will ask certain amount for ads.
• 1. Available audience (present)
• 2. Attentive audience (pay attention)
• 3. Internal audience (really thinking
• 4. Cumulative audience (indirectly targetted, told to, re-shared messages etc.)
• 5. Target audience
Audience activity:
• Biocca’s audience activity hierarchy
◦ Selectivity
◦ Resistance to influence
◦ Utilitarianism (can you use the message)
◦ Intentionality
◦ Involvement
• Commercial audience activity hierarchy (Roger Clausse, 1968)
◦ Message offered
▪ Messages that are sent
◦ Message receivable
▪ Amount of people that are able to receive
◦ Message received
▪ Amount of people that received the sent message
▪ (Original form of reach)
◦ Message registered
▪ Message that is kept by receiver
◦ Message internalised
▪ Highest level of audience activity. Message is read and knows about it.
▪ Worth most commercially
◦ Involvement
Three audience research traditions:
• Structural traditions
◦ Define reach and social composition of audience, needed for media to sell adds
◦ → Research can prove that audience is engaged (with advertisements)
• Behavioural traditions
◦ Early research preoccupied with media effects. The audience was conceptualised as
passive recipients. Later research considered the audience as more active.
◦ What will be the effect of the message?
◦ Difficult to know exactly why people are showing certain type of behaviour.
◦ You cannot predict that people will be influenced by a certain message
• Cultural tradition (newest addition)
◦ Considers media use as a reflection of a particular social-cultural context and as a
process of giving meaning to cultural products and experiences in every day life.
◦ Media message are used to give meaning to the world around them, create social reality
(constructionism). Difficult to research (because of hidden thought processes)
◦ research tries to figure those process out..
Media genres, formats and texts
Genre definition
• Any category of content identified by: form, style or function.
• Function of genres:
◦ to give us usable and recognisable: categorisation, hierarchy, definition or scope
• Patterns
• Cultural trends
• Reflect norms that live in society
• What we expect from a particular message
Genres: news
• News as narrative
◦ Most media content tells a story with a patterned and predictable form.
▪ Linking actions in a logical, sequential or causal way
▪ Providing the elements of people and places that have a fixed and recognisable
character
▪ News article: inverted pyramid.
• Starts with most important information
• Lesser important follows
• Enables a writer to remove parts of the story without having to rewrite it (if more
important articles pop-up and there is not enough space)
▪ Disappeared genres:
• Fake dialogues
• News song
◦ Factual reporting vs. Storytelling.
Example: Young Adult genre
• No specific books for teenagers. To encourage young readers to read and use libraries YA
genre has been invented.
• Not as complex
• Popular genre since 1970s
The Cultural texts
• The rise of cultural studies and its convergence had lead to a new form of discourse.
• Text refers to
◦ physical message itself
◦ The meaningful outcome of the encounter between content and reader
Audience theory and research traditions
What’s the audience
• Four types of audience:
◦ People assembled: proximity, location, time (people going to a lecture)
◦ People addressed: inscribed audience (people referred to in the message, not per se
target audience)
◦ Happening audience: ad hoc/impromptu (spontaneous speeches/street musicians, did not
choose to be part of audience)
◦ Hearing audience: participatory (when you can ask questions or respond)
, Concepts of audience reach:
• Based on reach media companies will ask certain amount for ads.
• 1. Available audience (present)
• 2. Attentive audience (pay attention)
• 3. Internal audience (really thinking
• 4. Cumulative audience (indirectly targetted, told to, re-shared messages etc.)
• 5. Target audience
Audience activity:
• Biocca’s audience activity hierarchy
◦ Selectivity
◦ Resistance to influence
◦ Utilitarianism (can you use the message)
◦ Intentionality
◦ Involvement
• Commercial audience activity hierarchy (Roger Clausse, 1968)
◦ Message offered
▪ Messages that are sent
◦ Message receivable
▪ Amount of people that are able to receive
◦ Message received
▪ Amount of people that received the sent message
▪ (Original form of reach)
◦ Message registered
▪ Message that is kept by receiver
◦ Message internalised
▪ Highest level of audience activity. Message is read and knows about it.
▪ Worth most commercially
◦ Involvement
Three audience research traditions:
• Structural traditions
◦ Define reach and social composition of audience, needed for media to sell adds
◦ → Research can prove that audience is engaged (with advertisements)
• Behavioural traditions
◦ Early research preoccupied with media effects. The audience was conceptualised as
passive recipients. Later research considered the audience as more active.
◦ What will be the effect of the message?
◦ Difficult to know exactly why people are showing certain type of behaviour.
◦ You cannot predict that people will be influenced by a certain message
• Cultural tradition (newest addition)
◦ Considers media use as a reflection of a particular social-cultural context and as a
process of giving meaning to cultural products and experiences in every day life.
◦ Media message are used to give meaning to the world around them, create social reality
(constructionism). Difficult to research (because of hidden thought processes)
◦ research tries to figure those process out..
