postmodern views of media ownership

Question 1

postmodern society is media saturated

Answer 1

simulacra - symbols and images that are our only version of reality

hyperreality
- Bruno, Borat and Ali G - more well known and ‘real’ than actor that plays them - characters get away with what actor cannot
- shows represented as real but are scripted

Baudrillard - disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of hyperreal and of simulation

explained - america is hyperreal - distinction between reality and simulation is blurred - experience of reality transformed by media so relating our life to unreal experiences

Question 2

postmodern society is media saturated eval

Answer 2

strength
- idea of hyperreality is increasingly relevant with the concept of fake news today

limitation
- postmodernists dont draw enough attention to the role of owners in creating hyperreality in their analysis
- if we are encouraged through the media to create an identity - does it not benefit ruling class that owns media
- arguments of postmodernist theory are often vague and frequently based on anecdotes rather than empirical evidence

Question 3

postmodern societies are unpinned by globalisation

Answer 3

media conglomerates - used communications technology to remove the distinction between global and the local and to increase consumer choice in range of media

• sociologists no longer claim owners and journalists influence audiences by disseminating a particular view of the world

glocalisation - non-western countries adapt aspects of Western culture eg bollywood

2011 - arab spring movement - facebook and twitter - global participatory culture - citizen journalism jenkins

Question 4

postmodern societies are unpinned by globalisation eval

Answer 4

strength
- evidence that people can bring about change through social media

limitation
- marxist argue that postmodernists fail to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence for the existence of structural inequalities in wealth and global relations - difficult for powerless groups to bring about meaningful change

Question 5

in postmodern society people no longer have faith in absolute truths

Answer 5

people become skeptical about science, politics - truth is unattainable and irrelevant in postmodern world

hyperreality - undermines power of truth and objectivity

Trowler - media messages in postmodern world are polysemic - each media text interpreted in different ways - difficult for one message to be more powerful than another

new media content - control of media no longer global media corporations

Jenkins - participatory culture

leads to information explosion

Question 6

in postmodern society people no longer have faith in absolute truths eval

Answer 6

strength
- postmodernism is one of only perspectives that highlights the role of the new media in ability to restrict power of media owners

limitation
- postmodernists exaggerate impact of the information explosion on ordinary people’s capacity to bring about change and reject meta-narratives

Question 7

usefulness of postmodernist perspective

Answer 7

explains how audiences interpret media messages - not fully passive by having a global participatory culture - helps explain how the postmodern world has brought changes to the concentration of the media