Genre explained.

When there is a group of media text, and they have similar forms, structures and pattern elements, then this is when it might be called 'Genre'.
These certain things will share a common structural element. For instance, the genre 'War' may have the same typical elements in settings. They would be in a warmine, in vietnam or in world war 2. They would all have the same background setting.
Genre represents a way of classifying ways into distinct types. This way people who like a specific genre can look for that to find what they want. Genre is also a good way for splitting audiences into demographics (age, sex, gender, race).
Genres are often broken down into sub-genres. These are where there is a specific genre, for example romance. The sub-genres for this could be romanic drama, romantic comedies, and sexual erotic films. People can start to become 'bored' with a specific genre that they watch. To try and prevent this they try and blend genre together. These types of mixtures of more than one genre are called hybrids.
The common genre type elements are known as conventions. These are known as the standard way of doing things, this has developed over time and from this, this is what audiences expect to form from genres.