Page 24 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

PROCESS

Virgins, based loosely on the account of a militant attack on an expatriate
compound in Saudi Arabia in 2004 that left seventeen people dead.
At 11:30, prime time in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi TV broadcasts The
Rough Road, a dramatic series about a documentary filmmaker who
discovers corruption among those involved in the cause of mujahedeen
in Afghanistan. Director Ali al-Ahmed declares, “We have allowed the
extremists to tell their story. Now we are warning the quiet majority to
watch out for them. We are telling the society to be careful of these people,
and we are allowing the drama to serve this cause.” (For additional in-
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formation on persuasion as a latent function, see Chapter 6.)

Profit. In the market-driven media industry, profit is likely a driving
underlying function. This economic imperative has an influence on the
content of genric programming. Ted Koppel, former anchor and managing
editor of the long-running ABC news program Nightline, comments:

Now, every division of every network is expected to make a profit. And
so we have entered the age of boutique journalism. The goal for the
traditional broadcast networks now is to identify those segments of the
audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and
then to cater to them. . . .
Even Fox News’s product has less to do with ideology and more to do
with changing business models. Fox has succeeded financially because it
tapped into a deep, rich vein of unfulfilled yearning among conservative
American television viewers, but it created programming to satisfy the
market, not the other way around. 5

Therapeutic Function. Genres put people in touch with a range of af-
fective responses, or emotional reactions. In fact, many popular genres
correspond to our primal emotions. Comedies make us laugh. Romances
make us cry. The horror genre arouses feelings of terror. Action/adventure
programs tap into our feelings of anger. Genres often play on the affec-
tive responses of the audience to build dramatic tension in the narrative.
For instance, in the romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the
two leading characters plan to meet at the stroke of the New Year at the
Empire State Building. But as in a dream, they pass by each other, not
recognizing one another, letting the moment pass. The film plays on the
knowledge that the audience yearns for the two to finally get together.
And horror films like The Exorcist (1973) play on the primal fears of the
audience to enhance the terror on-screen.

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