Baudrillard: Simulacra (Postmodernism)

Question 1

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What is irony?

Answer 1

When the last thing you would expect to happen happens.

Question 2

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Why is an hommage?
What is a parody?

Answer 2

Hommage - respectfully including something.

Parody - including something by making fun of it for comedic value.

Question 3

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What is a bricolage?
Provide an example.

Answer 3

The combination of different types of media products to make a new one.

A musician taking something from a different product to create a new song out of it.

Question 4

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What is an intertextual reference?

Answer 4

When the producer makes a subtle or direct reference to a specific media product.

Question 5

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What are fragmented narratives?

Answer 5

Non-linear narratives that are broken up and moved around.

Question 6

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What is self reflexivity?

Answer 6

Characters are aware they’re in a media product, they break the 4th wall.

Question 7

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What are common themes?
Provide an example.

Answer 7

Outlandish scenarios - ‘what if’ themes.

What if technology gets out of control?

Question 8

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What is lacking verisimilitude?

Answer 8

Lacking the appearance of being real or true.

Question 9

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Give an example of a type of programme that presents verisimilitude.

Answer 9

Soap operas.

Question 10

When does modernism and postmodernism refer to?

Answer 10

modernism = 1890s - 1945

postmodernism = post ww2

Question 11

How does the modern approach compare to the postmodern approach?

Answer 11

The modern approach is theoretical, objective and analytical.

Postmodern approach is subjective.

Question 12

What would a modernist thinker believe, compared to postmodern thinker?

Answer 12

Modernist = learning from experiences of the past, trusting the media.

Postmodernist = media texts are reflective of particular views of the world, tainted by the producer’s beliefs - biased and unreliable.

Question 13

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What is pastiche?

Answer 13

Imitating another type of work, artist or period.

Question 14

What type of things does ‘postmodern art’ cover?

Answer 14

Art, literature, culture etc

Question 15

What do postmodernists believe about truth?

Answer 15

There is no absolute truth.

Question 16

Baudrillard

What is simulacra?

Answer 16

The original meaning/message has, over time, been lost and become something else/there is none.

Question 17

Baudrillard

What are the 4 causes of simulacra?

Answer 17

Media culture

Modern economics and globalisation

Urbanisation

Language

Question 18

Baudrillard

How do postmodernists see the postmodern world?

Answer 18

As an increasingly simulated reality.

Question 19

Baudrillard

What do the ideas of simulacra and simulation explore?

Answer 19

The implications of media saturation where more and more of our experience is simulated.

Question 20

Baudrillard

What happens to simulated images in a postmodern world?

Answer 20

They become more ‘influential’ than lived experience, creating a hyperreality.

We lose any sense that of a distinction between what is real and what is artificial or ‘simulated’.

Question 21

Baudrillard

What happens to the representations of reality?

Answer 21

The representations of reality (simulacra) create a ‘reality’ which would not otherwise have existed eg celebrity and fashion appear to be real, but they have no independent existence outside their media representations.

Question 22

Baudrillard

What issues does simulacra raise regarding celebrities?

Answer 22

Consumers are unable to distinguish between reality and fiction, the audience don’t know what’s real and actually attainable for them.

Question 23

Baudrillard

Simulacra creates a ________; the __________ that everything being __________ is ______.

Answer 23

a) hyperreality
b) appearance
c) presented
d) real

Question 24

Baudrillard

What does the process of celebrity simulacra and simulation create?

Answer 24

A sense of hyperreality through being unable to see the difference between real life and what’s been fabricated.

Question 25

Baudrillard How do consumers use the hyperreal, simulacra and simulation to their advantage?

Answer 25

Audience wants to live in hyperreal because they can’t distinguish difference between real life and fiction - they compare themselves which creates the need for the product rather than consumer themselves deciding.

Question 26

Baudrillard How do Baudrillard's ideas contribute to capitalism?

Answer 26

Promotes selling stuff and benefitting from telling people what they want, not choosing what they want themselves.

Question 27

What is meant by a media saturated world?

Answer 27

A world of signs with little meaning.

Question 28

Opposition How are ideas in postmodernism presented?

Answer 28

Oppositions

Question 29

Opposition What is meant by the postmodern opposition 'Presentation v Representation and Construction'?

Answer 29

There is no originally present idea or image. Everything is represented, mediated and interpreted in various culutural, social and historical ways. Everything is subjective.

Question 30

Opposition What is meant by the postmodern opposition 'Origin v Phenomena'?

Answer 30

There is no absolute truth/way to understand meaning. Postmodernism deals with phenomena instead of original meaning.

Question 31

Opposition What is meant by the postmodern opposition 'Unity v Plurality?'

Answer 31

No one understands anything the same. Postmodernism (like post-structuralism) focuses on plurality of meaning.

Question 32

What is similar between postmodernism and post-structuralism?

Answer 32

Both focus on plurality of meaning.

Question 33

FEATURES of pm What is implosion?

Answer 33

Media's constant recycling of itself and signs means there is no new material. Meaning 'implodes' as info circulating through communication forms and structures emerge, flourish and then collapse.

Question 34

Baudrillard What is the process of simulacra?

Answer 34

Basic copy Corrupted second copy Something new Contemporary culture and late capitalism.

Question 35

Baudrillard What is simulation?

Answer 35

End product of the process of simulacra.

Question 36

Baudrillard How is hyperreality created?

Answer 36

In the simulation, there is no difference between representation and reality.