Genre

Genre is a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterised by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

Genre is a French word for "type" is important for both consumers and media producers. 

Codes

Codes are where the produced encodes the elements that are being shown to convey meaning and the audience has to decode what is happening. For example in a horror film a character may be walking down a dark hallway where he/she may not be able to see in front of them and the audience will decode what is going on and to think that something bad will happen to the character.

Conventions

The conventions of a film is what the audience expects and they will see the conventions pop up in films within the same genre. For example a horror film will have dark or dim lighting, blood, scares for the audience etc.

The different types of genres can include:

• Action/Adventure
• Science Fiction
• Drama
• Horror
• Comedy
• Crime
• Western
• Thriller
• Indie