Genre Theory

'Every genre positions those who participate in a text of that kind: as interviewer or interviewee, as listener or storyteller, as a reader or a writer, as a person interested in political matters, as someone to be instructed or as someone who instructs; each of these positionings implies different possibilities for response and for action. Each written text provides a 'reading position' for readers, a position constructed by the writer for the 'ideal reader' of the text. (Kress 1988, 107)'

Genre theory is used in the study of films in order to facilitate the categorisation of films. Genre are dependent on various factors such as story line, whom the director is, what are the audience expectations etc... In using genre theory we create a shortcut in how we describe films.
In order to understand Genre we may look at several examples. When we speak of the western we know that within this collection of films we may expect to find gun fights, horses and indians, the solitary cowboy and to some degree the actors and directors of such films. Another example would be when looking at the horror film where we know everyone will die except one. The audience whom go to those films expect to see zombie, were wolves,werewolves and more. They also expect certain content and a certain style of film making.