Postmodernism

Question 1

What is Postmodernity?

Answer 1

• follows on from modernity (modernity was the enlightenment project)
• globalisation and increased access to knowledge challenges old metanarratives of society

Question 2

What are the features of post-modernity?

Answer 2

• Increased DIVERSITY and CHOICE
• Increased hybridity (merging or creation of new cultures)
• Influence of globalisation

Question 3

Who are the key theorists of postmodernity?

Answer 3

• Lyotard

- Baudrillard

Question 4

What did Lyotard argue?

Answer 4

• people have stopped believing in one truth, no longer believes in one truth
• Technical language games: people try develop their own perspectives on events

Question 5

What did Baudrillard argue?

Answer 5

• Hyper reality and a media saturated reality
• Signs and symbols have meanings of their own that we can’t distinguish
• images are illusions of reality e.g., celebrities

Question 6

What is the role of the media?

Answer 6

• Media saturation causes simulacra and hyper reality, these are images that aren’t real
• we turn to what we think is real so our perspective always changes
• Society becomes fragmented and unstable because there is no fixed value

Question 7

(Postmodernity and narratives) What happened to the narritives after postmodernity?

Answer 7

• Narratives are broken into smaller narratives and multiple identities
• this creates uncertainty and confusion

Question 8

(Postmodernity and narratives)

Answer 8

• Structural identities such as class gender and ethnicity become less certain

Question 9

What are the evidence of postmodernism?

Answer 9

• Diversity of family and personal choice
• Greater fluidity in relationships, identity and appearance
• Emergence of hybrid cultures
• globalisation
• media saturation

Question 10

What are the evaluations of postmodernism?

Answer 10

• Marxists argue it ignores power and inequality, ruling class control of institutions such as media and education
• Too deterministic, do people actually believe the media?
• Role of class, gender and ethnicity relevant in contemporary in society

Question 11

What is globalisation?

Answer 11

• The increase of interconnectedness of people across national boundaries

Question 12

What are the 4 related changes that have helped bring globalisation about?

Answer 12

• Technological changes
• Economic changes
• Political changes
• Changes in culture and identity

Question 13

What is technological changes?

Answer 13

• we can cross entire continents in the matter or hours due to the creation of planes
• we can exchange information globally
• risk on a global scale (Beck “risk society” which are man made threats based on our decisions)

Question 14

What is Economic changes?

Answer 14

• “Electronic economy” instead of producing physical goods, activities now involve production of information produced by global electronic networks
• For example, music, TV programmes and data processing
• Transnational companies reinforce capitalism

Question 15

What is political changes?

Answer 15

• Globalisation has undermined the power of the state. - Ohmae “we live in a borderless world” argues that transnational companies and consumers have more power
• States are less able to regulate the activities of large capitalist society

Question 16

What is changes in culture and identity?

Answer 16

• Western owned media companies bred the western culture globally
• Economic integration is when transnational companies promotes similar tastes
• increased movement of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers help to create a globalized culture
• globalization undermines class, shifted from manufacturing in the west to developing countries, this leads to fragmentation and decline in working class communities

Question 17

What does Foucault argue?

Answer 17

• there are no sure foundations to knowledge, no objective idea to prove whether a theory is true (anti foundationalism)

Question 18

What are the two consequences of anti foundationalism?

Answer 18

• the enlightenment project, of achieving progress through true, scientific knowledge is dead (we don’t know if our knowledge is correct, we cant use it to improve society)
• any all/embracing theory that claims to have the truth about how to create a better society, such as Marxism is a mere meta narrative or big story - and is just someone’s version of reality and not the truth.

Question 19

How does media impact culture?

Answer 19

• the media are all pervading and they produce and endless stream of everchanging images, values and versions of the truth
• as a result culture becomes fragmented and unstable, because there is no longer a coherent or fixed set of values shared by members of society
• this also undermines peoples faiths in metanarratives because there are so many versions of the truth

Question 20

How does media impact identity?

Answer 20

• identity also becomes destabilised for example instead of a fixed identity, it is ascribed by our class, we can now construct our own identity from the wide range or images and life styles on offer in the media
• this means we can easily change our identity, simply by changing our consumption patterns