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Media Studies: Postmodernism - Coggle Diagram
Media Studies: Postmodernism
TYPES OF POSTMODERNISM:
Intertextuality:
Parody/Pastiche:
Hyperreality:
Simulacra/Simulation:
Hyperreality is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality.
Baudrillard defined 'hyperreality' as the generation bt models of a real without origin or reality, "it is a representation, a sign, without an original referrent.
THEORISTS:
Jean Baudrillard:
Hyperreality and Simulacra, Technology's Impact on our view of the world
EXAMPLES OF THEORY:
The Matrix franchise, The Truman Show, Wandavison, Ready Player One
Fredrick Jameson:
Intertextuality "Any text is the absorption and transformation of another"
Fredric Jameson diagnoses the postmodern condition as characterised by:
An ahistorical mode (lacking a sense of the past - history becomes another set of signifiers which can be played with).
A lack of distinction between 'high' and 'low' culture.
Surfaces - increasingly there is no time for depth - politics becomes soundbites, protests become slogans, the world is a collection of images.
Affectlessness - the predominant mode of irony and 'knowingness' leaves little room for real emotion, but short, sharp intense emotional responses are elicited through surface representations of things of which people have no first-hand experience, e.g. Brexit, the death of Diana, refugees.
Technologies of reproduction and recirculation, e.g. all social media.
Julia Kristeva:
Modular Narratives (Anachronic, Forking path, Split Screen, Episodic)
Alan Cameron:
"Stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles" - no distinction between 'high' and 'low' culture
Dominic Strinati:
"Postmodernism tries to come to terms with and understand media-saturated society. The mass media, for example, were once thought of as holding up a mirror to, and thereby reflecting, a wider social reality. Now that reality is only definable in terms of surface reflection of the mirror"
"Media images encourage superficiality rather than substance, cynicism rather than belief, the third for constant change rather than security of stable traditions, the desire of the moment rather than the truths of history"
"Postmodernism is sceptical of any absolute, universal and all-embracing claim to knowledge and argues that theories or doctrines which make such claims are increasingly open to criticism, contestation and doubt.
Stranati's 5 Identifiers of Postmodernism:
The breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (mediatisation).
Art once attempted to reflect reality.
Postmodern reality now incorporates art in the form of media texts - Film/TV = Art = reality for the audiences.
The Media reality of an event is more real than the event itself, we only understand it/see it through the media.
An emphasis on style at the expense of substance and content.
Appearance is better than function
External factors such as good looks in a person rather than internal qualities such as intelligence and talent.
Entertainment and diversion is better than serious discussion and issue.
The breakdown of the distinction between high culture (art) and popular culture.
High art = opera, ballet, theatre, visual arts like a painting.
High art was only for a elite, wealthy, educated group.
Low art or popular culture (e.g. film, TV, pop music) was for the masses.
Confusion over time and space.
Strinati believes that: 2because of the speed and scope of modern mass communication, because of the relative ease with which people and information can travel, time and space become less stable and comprehensible, more confusing, more incoherent, more disunified."
"Mass Media" allows us to access the world from home.
Everything in a Post-Modern society is 'here and now'.
Decline of Meta-Narratives.
Big stories or 'grand narratives' (Lyotard).
Big ideas and concepts used to explain the way the world is.
Religion, Political theories, Economic Theory.
"Postmodernism denies there can be any single truths/realties as most of our culture understanding is based on the personal interpretations we make from the media representation that dominate our culture, therefore grand narratives are too simplistic and too narrow in their approach" - Step Hendry.
IMPACT OF POSTMODERNISM ON NARRATIVE: big chungus
Theorists:
Tzvetan Todorov:
Suggests that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is 'normal' and protagonists happy.
This state of normality is disrupted by an outside force, which has to be fought against in order to return to a state of equilibrium.
Equilibrium - Disruption - New Equilibrium:
Equilibrium: The kingdom is at peace and everyone is happy.
Disruption: A dragon turns up and ruins everything. The knight kills the dragon to save the day.
New Equilibrium: Peace is returned to the kingdom, albeit in a slightly different state to the start of the story (a few things e.g. buildings have been burned to the ground for example).
Vladimir Propp - Character roles:
Analysed over 100 Russian fairytales in the 1920s.
He proposed and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions. Such as with films like Star Wars, which fit Propp's model precisely, but a significant number of more recent films such as Pulp Fiction do not.
The model is useful, however as it highlights the similarities between seemingly quite different stories.
Propp's Character Roles:
The hero (seeks something)
The villain (oppose the hero)
The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)
The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
The false hero (falsely assuming the role of hero)
The helper (gives support to the hero)
the princess (the reward for the hero, but also needs protection from the villain.
Open world video games (such as GTA, Watch Dogs, Cyberpunk 2077 for example) give huge amounts of control to the player and one person's experience of the game's narrative may be completely different to another person's.
Social media pages encourages you to 'Add to you story'. The individual is actively constructing their narrative through uploading text, images and videos to create a narratives that represents them - this links closely to the idea of simulacra. The online version of you is exactly that, a constructed version.
The processing power for next generation games consoles have allowed game developers to produce alternative worlds with almost limitless possibilities. This same concept can be applied
MEMES:
Richard Dawkins - The man who coined the term 'meme'
Dawkins initially defined meme as a noun that "conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation "... this forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a single unit of self-replicating information found on the self-replicating chromosomes.
However, this was during the 1970s, long before the internet was established as the dominant form of communication.
How does meme culture fit into our understanding of postmodernism?
Anything can be a meme - anything can be art to anyone - it is a broad spectrum just like postmodernism as a whole.
Intertextuality - parody and pastiche (wholesome memes)
Short life span - Here today gone tomorrow - immediate gratification
Strinati - no distinction between high and low culture. Most popular memes are most successful. They can be art because anything can be
Reliance on technology - speed of sharing - proliferation of a meme's popularity
A version of 'structured reality' memes are mediated/constructed
Media saturated world or meme saturated world
