GLOBALISATION, POSTMODERNITY AND MODERNITY

Question 1

What is modernity?

Answer 1

• Reason, rationality and science will allow us to gain true, objective knowledge that can be used to improve society.

Question 2

Features of a modern society

Answer 2

• Nation-state
• Individualism
• Capitalism
• Rationality, Science and Technology

Question 3

What is globalisation?

Answer 3

• Increasing interconnectedness across national boundaries, we are becoming one interdependent ‘global village’ and our lives are shaped by a global framework.

Question 4

Technological changes

Answer 4

• Satellite communications, TV and Internet create time-space compression
• Beck argues technology contributes to a risk society.

Question 5

Economic Changes

Answer 5

• Information such as music and data processing is produced, distributed and consumed through global electronic networks.
  24 hour financial transactions.
• Trains-national companies e.g. Coco-cola

Question 6

Political Changes

Answer 6

Ohmae(1984) trans-national companies and consumers have more economic power than the government.

Question 7

Changes in culture and identity

Answer 7

• Media and trans-national companies promote the same products worldwide.
• Increased tourists, asylum seekers, refugees and migrants contribute to this globalised culture.
• Traditional identities undermined e.g. Working class and shift of manufacturing.

Question 8

What is Postmodernism?

Answer 8

• Unstable, fragmented, media-saturated, global village, where image and reality are indistinguishable.

Question 9

Postmodernism and Knowledge

Answer 9

• Enlightenment project is dead, of we can’t guarantee any knowledge is true the. We cannot use it to improve.
• Meta-narratives are an individual’s version of what is true and therefore there is no reason for us to believe them.

Question 10

What is the relativist view?

Answer 10

All views are true for those who hold them and all accounts are equally valid.

Question 11

Lyotard (1992)

Answer 11

Knowledge is a way of seeing the world, it allows marginalised group such as ethnic minorities and women to be heard.

Question 12

Baudrillard:

Answer 12

• Simulacra
• Society is based on buying and selling knowledge in the form of images and signs.
• Signs no longer have underlying meanings.
• Signs appear to be more than reality even though they are meaningless.
• Creates a hyper-reality.

Question 13

Culture, Identity and Politics

Answer 13

• Culture is unstable because of the hyper-reality created by the media.
• So many of versions of the truth, hard to believe wholeheartedly to believe in any version.
• Identity is destabilised, we construct it ourselves and to change, we change our consumption patterns.
• We no longer have the power to grasp reality, so we can’t change or improve it.

Question 14

Evaluation of Postmodernism

Answer 14

• (Philo and Miller 2001)
  Ignores power and inequality.
• Assumes we freely construct our identities without acknowledge or underlying structures e.g. Poverty.
  Wrongly claims people can’t distinguish between media and reality.
• By assuming all views equally valid, just as valid to deny nazis murdered millions as it does to affirm it.

Question 15

Lyotard criticism

Answer 15

• Theory is self-defeating, a theory claiming that no theory has the truth.

Question 16

Best and Kellner (1991) criticism

Answer 16

• Identifies important features but doesn’t explain how they came about.

Question 17

Harvey (1989) criticism

Answer 17

Pessimistic view
Political decisions make a real difference and knowledge can be used to solve human problems.

Question 18

Giddens: Theories of Late Modernity

Answer 18

• Disembedding and reflexivity mean that we experience rapid social change.
• Disembedding: no longer need to be face to face to interact.
• Reflexivity: monitoring, reflecting and modifying our actions.

Question 19

Beck: Risk Society

Answer 19

• Reason can be used to create a better world.
• Whereas traditionally, risks were natural, we now face manufactured risks resulting from human activities e.g. Global warming.
• Risk consciousness is very central in society.

Question 20

Risk, Politics and Progress

Answer 20

Beck: we can use reflexivity, evaluate risks rationally and take political action to reduce them.

Question 21

Evaluation of Theories of Late Modernity

Answer 21

• Reflexivity cannot always work e.g. Poor more likely to live in polluted areas but cannot move.
• Provides alternative to postmodernism, suggests we can still use knowledge to improve even if it is not perfect.

Question 22

Rustin (1994)

Answer 22

• Capitalism is a source of risk not technology.

Question 23

Hirst (1993)

Answer 23

• Movements such as environmentalism ate too fragmented to overthrow capitalism.

Question 25

Jameson and Harvey

Answer 25

Believe in the enlightenment project.
We are in the most recent stages of capitalism which rose out of a periodic crises of profitability in the 1970s.

Question 26

Flexible Accumulation/Post-Fordism

Answer 26

• A new way of achieving profitability e.g. Use of information technology, an expanded service and finance sector, job insecurity and requirement for workers to be flexible.
• Niche markets, brought about cultural characteristics e.g. Cultural diversity from customised products.
  Easy switching from one product to another.
• Everything a commodity e.g. Fashion, music, sports and computer games.

Question 27

Politics and Progress

Answer 27

• Flexible accumulation has meant that the working class and other socialist movements have become weak ended.
• There is a rise in oppositional movements e.g. Environmentalism than form a ‘rainbow alliance’ and may lead to change.

Question 28

Best and Kellner - How does Marxist theory of Postmodernism differ from Postmodernism?

Answer 28

Retains faith in Marxist theory.
* Believes in the enlightenment project.

Question 29

Evaluation of Marxist Theories of Postmodernism

Answer 29

• Abandons the possibility of working class overthrowing capitalism through political opposition being fragmented into many social movements.
• Offers a sociological explanation for recent changes in society.