Baudrillard: Simulacra (Postmodernism) Flashcards
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What is irony?
When the last thing you would expect to happen happens.
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Why is an hommage?
What is a parody?
Hommage - respectfully including something.
Parody - including something by making fun of it for comedic value.
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What is a bricolage?
Provide an example.
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.
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What is an intertextual reference?
When the producer makes a subtle or direct reference to a specific media product.
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What are fragmented narratives?
Non-linear narratives that are broken up and moved around.
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What is self reflexivity?
Characters are aware they’re in a media product, they break the 4th wall.
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What are common themes?
Provide an example.
Outlandish scenarios - ‘what if’ themes.
What if technology gets out of control?
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What is lacking verisimilitude?
Lacking the appearance of being real or true.
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Give an example of a type of programme that presents verisimilitude.
Soap operas.
When does modernism and postmodernism refer to?
modernism = 1890s - 1945
postmodernism = post ww2
How does the modern approach compare to the postmodern approach?
The modern approach is theoretical, objective and analytical.
Postmodern approach is subjective.
What would a modernist thinker believe, compared to postmodern thinker?
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.
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What is pastiche?
Imitating another type of work, artist or period.
What type of things does ‘postmodern art’ cover?
Art, literature, culture etc
What do postmodernists believe about truth?
There is no absolute truth.
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What is simulacra?
The original meaning/message has, over time, been lost and become something else/there is none.
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What are the 4 causes of simulacra?
Media culture
Modern economics and globalisation
Urbanisation
Language
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How do postmodernists see the postmodern world?
As an increasingly simulated reality.
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What do the ideas of simulacra and simulation explore?
The implications of media saturation where more and more of our experience is simulated.
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What happens to simulated images in a postmodern world?
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’.
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What happens to the representations of reality?
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.
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What issues does simulacra raise regarding celebrities?
Consumers are unable to distinguish between reality and fiction, the audience don’t know what’s real and actually attainable for them.
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Simulacra creates a ________; the __________ that everything being __________ is ______.
a) hyperreality
b) appearance
c) presented
d) real
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What does the process of celebrity simulacra and simulation create?
A sense of hyperreality through being unable to see the difference between real life and what’s been fabricated.
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How do consumers use the hyperreal, simulacra and simulation to their advantage?
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.
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How do Baudrillard’s ideas contribute to capitalism?
Promotes selling stuff and benefitting from telling people what they want, not choosing what they want themselves.
What is meant by a media saturated world?
A world of signs with little meaning.
Opposition
How are ideas in postmodernism presented?
Oppositions
Opposition
What is meant by the postmodern opposition ‘Presentation v Representation and Construction’?
There is no originally present idea or image.
Everything is represented, mediated and interpreted in various culutural, social and historical ways.
Everything is subjective.
Opposition
What is meant by the postmodern opposition ‘Origin v Phenomena’?
There is no absolute truth/way to understand meaning.
Postmodernism deals with phenomena instead of original meaning.
Opposition
What is meant by the postmodern opposition ‘Unity v Plurality?’
No one understands anything the same.
Postmodernism (like post-structuralism) focuses on plurality of meaning.
What is similar between postmodernism and post-structuralism?
Both focus on plurality of meaning.
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What is implosion?
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.
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What is the process of simulacra?
Basic copy
Corrupted second copy
Something new
Contemporary culture and late capitalism.
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What is simulation?
End product of the process of simulacra.
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How is hyperreality created?
In the simulation, there is no difference between representation and reality.
