Postmodern society

Question 1

Features of modernity

Answer 1

Before 1970s - modernity
Industrialisation and mass production
Class main cause of social division
Life orderly and predictable

Question 2

Features of postmodernity

Answer 2

Post 1980s - postmodernity
Concerns about environment
Consumption lifestyles
Awareness of other cultures

Media saturation - huge part of society - media distorts our reality - creates hyper reality (improves on reality) and simulacra (becomes attached to a character rather than actor), shapes our identity
Time - space-compression - interconnectedness
Individualism - free will and choice

Question 3

Postmodernism

Answer 3

Macro approach, structural theory, consumption, individualism, globalisation
Unsure about meta narratives - people no longer believe single theory can understand society, society based on individuals not structures, world is changing too rapidly
Multiculturalism.
Rejection of science.

A03 - people still terrorise other by imposing a theory on them (Islamic state)

Question 4

Lyotard - Language games

Answer 4

Postmodern society developed due to technology, science but most importantly language changes
Postmodern world is characterised by spreading cynicism about met narratives - eg socialism, science
Postmodern society - competing views of truth, is preferable to modern society where meta narratives claimed monopoly of truth - sought to impose by force
Free will to choose identity.

Question 5

Baudrillard

Answer 5

‘End of the social’ as people can be who and what they want ‘pick and mix’ identity.
This is done through media creating desires/greed/need and want and pressure us to consume goods.
Clothes, labels, lifestyle is how define us now, instead of class, gender and ethnicity.

Question 6

Media saturation

Answer 6

Simulacra - false images

Hyperreality - distorted images