Contextual Studies - Sitcom's

When understanding genre, its a type of media that shares common codes and conventions looking at the social, political and historical contexts. Its very identifiable with an audience. For example if a group of people were sitting at home and in the mood for a horror, they could scroll through a streaming service like Netflix and pick a horror program/film from that section. When watching the horror they will be able to identify with the codes and conventions they are used to in a horror like its score, characters (monster/ killer, survivor), Props (Knife), Location (Isolated areas i.e. an old house) and jump scares or gore. This leaves the audience satisfied as they're prepared to experience these conventions.

When looking at the sub-genre of Sitcom, its a situation comedy that only applies to television. It involves characters resolving a comical situation in their lives. When looking at the Technical conventions of sitcoms filmed in a studio they are generally edited as if the audience is watching it live. This links into the canned laughter that is used in the background to make you feel like you are with a studio audience watching it. For example when watching friends there is laughter throughout at the jokes and gasp moments when something is revealed. Location sitcoms follow slightly different conventions. There is no live laugh track and they are edited in post production. They often have a story for each episode rather than a continued story throughout the series like Arrested Development or Parks and Recreation. Most sitcoms have an ideology based around a family i.e. the work family, nuclear family, extended family and co-habitees.











Sitcoms are done in episodes and generally last around 30 minutes. They use comic traps in there narrative to give depth and add to the story. They start as an equilibrium, then a problem is found, the characters go through the problem, the problem is solved, everything returns to normal. Its done like a cycle and obtains this set up in every episode.


There are many different types of sitcoms in a way that comedy can be shown an example would be a parody. This is a mockery of original work as it imitates the subject they are showing. Its similar to a spoof however this usually makes fun of a genre in its entirety like the Scary Movie films. A satire tends to have a lot more serious issues involved but it makes us laugh when it goes wrong and gets worse.

In terms of mise en scene there are classic things that they use. It generally focuses around something central like a sofa or an office desk. The audience identify this as where the characters lives revolve around. In Friends they use a coffee shop sofa where they all meet to discuss there problems and issues they are having. since friends became more evolved it had many more focus points like their apartments and Rachel's work.

There are general Archetypes/ stereotypes in sitcoms:

The Rebel -a character who uses a more harsh sense of comedy and is very sarcastic
The Libertine - someone who is hyper sexual and uses innuendos
The Authority figure - this character tries to control the situations
The fool - a person who is not very self aware and has the reputation of being stupid.

All of these characters can be seen in Modern Family. We have The rebel who is the eldest daughter of the Dunphy's Hayley and also Luke the youngest, the authority figures Claire Dunphy and Jay Pritchett and the fools Phill Dunphy and Gloria Pritchett. We could also say Gloria is the libertine as well although she is not aware of it.