Postmodern Media – the arguments for and against postmodernism

Prompt question 2 - What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media as post-modern?

Jean-Francois Lyotard & Jean Baudrillard – the 2 Jean’s

Advocates of postmodernism

Lyotard – societies are now post-industrial, cultures are now post-modernism

Postmodern era – from the end of the 1950s onwards – postwar reconstruction of Europe
End of grand narratives /meta-narratives – science, religion

Rise of micro-narratives

Postmodern – aesthetic not historical – historical is easier but is it more useful to take the aesthetic approach?

Baudrillard – earlier societies – communicate face-to-face or in print

Now we communicate through electronic media

Our lives are now shaped by simulated events and opportunities (media-saturated society) – TV / internet shopping

The simulations have become dominant – more real than real (‘more human than human’)
Blurring of the lines between the real and the unreal – the hyperreal

The critics of postmodernism – Habermas and Jameson

Habermas – links ‘the modern’ to the Enlightenment (‘The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals.’)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

The era of modernity / the Enlightenment project is not yet complete – no need to talk about postmodernism

Rejects the Baudrillardian approach about the dominance of simulacra – there is meaning to cultural artefacts

Jameson – the postmodern era is the era of late capitalism (Marxist approach)

In the postmodern era, the people are far removed from the economic system they serve
Postmodern culture – flatness, depthless, superficial

Marked by the rise of pastiche and nostalgia