What is it?
The concept is one which has become increasingly useful in the analysis and understanding of contemporary media culture but unfortunately is not a simple one to define.
It is at once a sociological condition which it is argued that the western world has moved in to over the last 30 years or so, a way of working (i.e. we can talk of a pomo film/book/work of art, etc.) and a set of philosophical ideas about the nature of reality; and these three aspects interact, and are interdependent.
Postmodernism is often paradoxical and contradictory; e.g. de-centralisation; fragmentation yet at same time can be centralization, globalization, macdonaldisation of the world.
Philosophers such as Baudrillard, Richard Rorty and Lyotard.
Characteristics
- Barriers of high and popular culture disappear
- Hyper realism simulacra
- Our perceptions of time and space shift and change; past present and future dissolve into an eternal present, boundaries of all types blur-between high and popular culture, genres, even reality and fantasy.
- The traditional role of the author as creative maker of a cultural artefact is brought into question e.g. in the era of sampling and computer-centred music can we talk of a musical auteur as we might have done with Mozart or even The Beatles?
- End of originality
- Traditional metanarratives of family, work, etc. are...
