postmodernism

postmodernist views

• they focus on a number of social changes that have occurered in recent years which have had a signifcant inpact on society and in turn , on media representations of social groups

• postmodernist views ca

diversity and choice

• people can pick and choose their identity through social and technological changes in the media and what it has to offer

• media shows a wide variety of images that can be chosen from

• they believe society has moved away from the ideas of collectivism and are more focused on individualism where there is no fixed ideology or set of beliefs shaping representations

• if there are no fixed norms and values then the audience are most likely to receive the messages in different ways

• they argue that individuals create their own meaning for media products

• its all dependent in the individuals interpretation of the media

media saturation

• they see countries such as the uk as media saturated (strinati)

• they believe that people interact with the media through a variety of sources and products

• therefore the media is seen as one of the main institutions that shapes identity

• they examine the role of the media such as lifestyle magazines ,tv documentaries advertising and social networking sites in advising people on how to makeover their bodies, their relationships and their lives

• therefore, the media has the potential to have a significant influence though post modernists would argue that there is a wide range of representations that reflect the diversity in society today

globalisation

• mcluhan discussed the concept of the global village as early as the 1960s

• he believes that through social and technologocial changes the world has become more interconnected

• process of globalisation has had an impact on media represetations as it has provided more access to a broader range of lifestyles and identities that people can choose from

• this therefore has had a influence on the range of representations available in the media including hybrid identites that blend different cultural experiences to create new identites

blurred boundaries

• they contend that social changes have led to a blurring of boundaries between social groups

• the breakdown of shared norms and values has encouraged individualism and has led to less division between different social groups in society

• for example, the would argue that in a post modernist world , there is no fixed ideology about gender identity so males and females are not constrained by set roles that they are expected to follow

• this is reflected in age ethnicity and social class

hyper-reality

• some post modernists writers take a less optimistic view in the effect of media changes

• theorist such as Baudrillard believe that the media has altered the nature of reality that the audience experience

• he argues that because of media saturation, there is a blur between what is and isn’t real

• he contends that people are ‘engulfed ‘ by communication and this leads to a state of hyper reality

turkle

• describes a postmodernist perspective on television in which people come to fee that tv is a more real world than the actual world they inhabit

• she also writes of the internet as the main organ of a virtual world , pointing to the popularity of the virtual reality sites such as second life

• in a similar vein , watson writes of ‘superficiality not depth’ the loss of authentic community and no true sense of self

overrall

• postmodernist theorists have also examined the ways in which the media encourages consumption of products that create identities such as logos ,designer labels and brands and that the surface messages given to these products are seen as being more important than the physical; reality of the actual products themselves

• media representations are therefore, likely to reflect this blurring of the real and the fictional -for example, through the use of air-brushing and other techniques that alter images