GLOBALISATION, POSTMODERNITY AND MODERNITY Flashcards
What is modernity?
- Reason, rationality and science will allow us to gain true, objective knowledge that can be used to improve society.
Features of a modern society
- Nation-state
- Individualism
- Capitalism
- Rationality, Science and Technology
What is globalisation?
- Increasing interconnectedness across national boundaries, we are becoming one interdependent ‘global village’ and our lives are shaped by a global framework.
Technological changes
- Satellite communications, TV and Internet create time-space compression
- Beck argues technology contributes to a risk society.
Economic Changes
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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
Political Changes
Ohmae(1984) trans-national companies and consumers have more economic power than the government.
Changes in culture and identity
- 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.
What is Postmodernism?
- Unstable, fragmented, media-saturated, global village, where image and reality are indistinguishable.
Postmodernism and Knowledge
- 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.
What is the relativist view?
All views are true for those who hold them and all accounts are equally valid.
Lyotard (1992)
Knowledge is a way of seeing the world, it allows marginalised group such as ethnic minorities and women to be heard.
Baudrillard:
- 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.
Culture, Identity and Politics
- 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.
Evaluation of Postmodernism
- (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.
Lyotard criticism
- Theory is self-defeating, a theory claiming that no theory has the truth.
Best and Kellner (1991) criticism
- Identifies important features but doesn’t explain how they came about.
Harvey (1989) criticism
Pessimistic view
Political decisions make a real difference and knowledge can be used to solve human problems.
Giddens: Theories of Late Modernity
- 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.
Beck: Risk Society
- 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.
Risk, Politics and Progress
Beck: we can use reflexivity, evaluate risks rationally and take political action to reduce them.
Evaluation of Theories of Late Modernity
- 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.
Rustin (1994)
- Capitalism is a source of risk not technology.
Hirst (1993)
- Movements such as environmentalism ate too fragmented to overthrow capitalism.
Jameson and Harvey
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.
Flexible Accumulation/Post-Fordism
- 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.
Politics and Progress
- 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.
Best and Kellner - How does Marxist theory of Postmodernism differ from Postmodernism?
Retains faith in Marxist theory.
* Believes in the enlightenment project.
Evaluation of Marxist Theories of Postmodernism
- 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.
