postmodernism

• phase 1 - early modernity
• early modernity - renaissance to the early Industrial revolution. Limited cultural production that is dominated by a few authors
• Phase 2 - Modernity
• Modernity - the industrial revolution to the second world war. cultural representation being to break down - producing multiple versions of reality. cultural production is dominated by the bourgeoisie and legitimises the capitalist system
• Phase 3 - Postmodernity
• Postmodernity - post WW2 onwards. media produces hyperreality - an explosion of meaning. media makes everyone a consumer, audience have limited relationship with authentic meanings. advertising and television ascend as the dominant cultural forces.
• hyperreality - idea that we are unable to seperate the real world from that which is manufactures by the media. we live in a world that is beyond reality/hyperreal.
• inertia - the constant stream of media that we are subjected to paralyses us or make us unable to feel or act in a way that creates deep meaning,
• implosion - the sheer volume of media and multiplicityof voices within the contemporary media landscape produces a cocktail of opinion and counteropinion that audiences cannot disentangle.
• media blending - media forms the postmodern age blur - e.g. the narrative strategies of news become absorbed into fiction and vice versa.
• key concept - from the real to the hyperreal.
• we currently live in the postmodern age, which is marked by a massive proliferation in media content and media messages.
• Baudrillard suggests that the media blending has resulted in the construction of fictionalised reality.