Rick Altman's Genre Theory

Rick Altman believes that genre can be identified by two main features. This can be applied to nearly all forms of media, but I will relate it to music videos. The two main features are: Semantic Elements, and Syntactic Elements.

Semantic Elements are visual conventions, which can be seen with ease, e.g. in a pop song the bright mainstream clothing would be a signifier of the genre. An example would be the genre rock, which almost always contains the band playing at some point in the video.

Syntactic Elements are conventions, that are not visual, thus being more difficult to spot. They can often be themes or moods. E.g. in a pop music video will conventionally be upbeat and happy, and have a positive ending to them.