Postmodernism is a way of grouping and describing the different styles of thought and cultrue that attracts the most critical attention during the final decades of thr twentieth century. 'Postmodernism thought' has caused revolution across all different academic subjects, from Physics to Englsih and Geograaphy. Postmodernism offers a different ways of constructing and also deconstructing an idea.
The Oxford Dictionary defines postmodernism as:
'a style and concept in the arts characterised by a disrust of theoriests and ideologies and by the drawing attention of conventions'
Reconising
Postmodern texts deliberatly play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate audeince and exhibit many traits of intertextuality. Many texts acknowledge this, due to the diverse audeince today. Many sophisticated visual puns used by advertising can be described as postmodern. Postmodern texts tend to use images and ideas in a away tht is entirely alien to the original function.
Relation
Many media texts are deliberatly constructed as postmodern and it is expected to engage with them in this way. You also need to understand the significance of the term, and how it can be used as part of deconstruction
Postmodernists claim that in a media staurated world were we are constantly immersed in media 24/7 the distinction between realisty and and the media representation becomes blurred and eventually completly invisable. In other words, we no longer have any sence of the difference between real things and images of them or real experinces and simulation of them. Media reality becomes new reality.
Idea's
Postmodern media rejects the idea that any meia product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements are merely taste. Anything can be art, anythign can deserve to reach an audeince, and culture 'eats itself' as there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute.
The distintion between media and relaity has collapsed, and we now live in a 'reality' defined by images and representations -a state of simulacrum. Images refer to eachother and represent eachother as reality rather than some 'pure' reality that exists before the images represent it - state of hyperreality.
Theoriests
Baudrillard & Lyotard have a belief that the idea of truth needs to be 'deconstructed' so that we can challenge the dominate ideas that people claim to be the truth, which Lyotard describes as 'Grand Narratives'
Critics find it hard to accept their views and find them offensive and hard to reconcile with their belief system.
Baudrillard wrote a treatise called 'simulacra and simulation' and is well known for its discussion of images, signs and how they relate to modern day. Baudrillard claims that modern society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs and that the human experience is of a simulation of reality, rather than reality itself.
Baudrillard famously used Disneyland as an example and said that Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the 'real' country, all of real
'The
McDougall: 'Pure' reality is replaced by the hyper reality where any boundary between the real and the imaginary is eroded. Baudrillard's work is an attempt to expose the 'open secret' that this is how we live and make sense of the world in postmodern times
07 July 11
Faith and grand narrative have collapsed
Identity is fluid
Consumerism is a creative endeavout in which the self is constructed
No distinction between real and simulated
Convergence of infromation technology and socity
Some argue that musical recodrings are the epitmoe of the post modern text,., because they are copies without orgininals (sumulacrums)
Music video reinforce this in its depiction of unauthentic performancs and abstract visuals.
Willis challenges recieved thinking that certain art forms are more vaild than others.
How Has the Word Postmodern Been Used by Different Theorists
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