Choosing a specific television production, identify and examine its use of genre and narrative tools and how an online or portable media transmission would affect these tools.

             In this essay I will be examining The X Factor as my chosen television production, and identifying and examining its use of genre and narrative tools and also looking at how an online media transmission would affect these tools.

             Genre can be described as a set of particular conventions or rules that present a story in a specific, particular way. Glen Creeber says, "genre simply allows us to organize a good deal of material into smaller categories. For example, a process of generic categorization is used in biology to distinguish between different types of living organisms, mammals, birds, and fish and so on." " (Creeber, 2008:1) .

             Each genre has certain conventions, rules and expectations associated with them. The story and image rules of each genre are the key to what defines them as a specific genre. Narrative is used in every single drama, documentary, entertainment, news and reality TV series; it is used as a tool so the story can be easily communicated back to the audience. Christopher Brooker has an effective theory that "all stories can be broken down into "The Magnificent Seven"" (Brooker) "The Magnificent Seven" are in Brooker's opinion, the main seven narrative plot line categories, they are as follows; .

             Tragedy.

             Comedy.

             Overcoming the Monster.

             Voyage and Return .

             Quest.

             Rags to Riches.

             Rebirth.

             Others theorists such as Drummond and Paterson add to Brooker's theory by saying .

             "There are a number of ways of using narrative to make news stories more accessible, more comprehensible and more compelling" (Drummond and Paterson, 1985:228) .

             "The X Factor" is a great example of a show using nearly all 7 of Brooker's "Magnificent Seven"." The X Factor always has a contestant with a sad story i.e. a close relative has passed away, etc.