Education is Media Saturated – Baudrillard

A key feature of postmodernism is that we live in a society where our primary experience of reality comes through the media. We have almost constant contact with the media in our lives and most of our interactions are based upon some form of digital platform as opposed to face-to-face.

Postmodernists such as Baudrillard describe our perceptions as now being based within a hyper-reality, this refers to the idea that our understanding of the world is how it is presented to us rather than how it actually is. Some argue that education itself has become ‘hyperreal’. Schools are making much more use of ICT in their delivery and students can now attend many lessons in virtual classrooms where they do not have to be physically present.

· Microsoft teams and zoom are all new ways that teachers have started to deliver their lessons.

· Some universities offer courses where there is never any actual physical contact between student and teacher, all lessons and interaction take place online!

Evaluation

Most virtual lessons are a response to special and unique circumstances such as the global COVID pandemic and do not truly reflect the direction of the education system. If teachers conducted lessons remotely using virtual classrooms all the time then there would be intervention from regulatory bodies such as Ofsted.

Although ICT is becoming increasingly important in the education system, most exams are still very traditional and have not changed much in their delivery for many years.