1. Pastiche- is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist
2. Parody-  is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
3. Bricolage-  the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning  
4. Intertextuality- it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that meaning is therefore a complex process of decoding/encoding with individuals both taking and creating meaning in the process of reading texts/  the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.
5. Metanarrative-  experience, or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a master idea. 
6. Hyperreality- everything seems more real then it is.
7. Simulacrum-  is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. Simulations are more real than the actual thing
8. Consumerist Society- a society that consuming is the main objective
9. Fragmentary Identities- Is when we construct multiple identities
10. Implosion- Implosion is a process in which objects are destroyed by collapsing on themselves.
11. cultural appropriation- , is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures
12. Reflexivity- In epistemology, and more specifically, the sociology of knowledge, reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect, especially as embedded in human belief structures.

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is a way of seeing the world. It is possible to understand postmodernism as a complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships, a practice of re imagining, pastiche, bricolage and self-referentiality, 

Intertextuality: surface signs, gestures & play

• As Shuker notes, two points are frequently made about music videos: ‘their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts.’
• The fragmentary, decentred nature of music videos that break up traditional understandings of time and space so that audiences are ‘no longer able to distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’, part of the postmodern condition’ 

Surface and style over substance

If it the priority is play, then the emphasis is on the surface, in other words, if the main focus is the idea of just connecting one product to another, then the focus is superficial, shallow, lacking depth

Richard Hoggart 

• noted the shift in modern societies particularly the impact on our ‘neighborhood lives’, which was ‘an extremely local life, in which everything is remarkably near
•  Cities, towns, villages and houses all became high-consuming energy centres’

Fragmentary consumption = Fragmentary identities.

• This process of fragmented consumption separating, splitting up and dividing previously homogeneous groups such as, friends, the family, the neighborhood, the local community, the town, the county, the country and importantly, is often linked to the process of fragmented identity construction.
•  the transition from substance to style is linked to a transition from production to consumption.
•  another key characteristic of postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living (precariously) in fragmented societies.

The loss of a metanarrative

overarching ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs that have held us together in a shared belief, For example, the belief in religion, science, capitalism, communism, revolution, war, peace and so on.

Jean Baudrillard

• From a societal perspective the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’
• from Baudrillard’s perspective of implosion, it is has become more than a representation or simulation

Equal justice initiative-

• “A narrative of white supremacy was created”
• Slavery officially ended but actually grew from 40,000 to 435,000
• Slavery didn’t end, it evolved
• Jim Crow laws- no school, cant vote

Paul Gilroy

Theme of Double Consciousness (hybridisation), how can you be both black and British

derived from W. E. B. Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency

Edward Said

In his book Orientalism, Edward Said, points out that ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (Or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. . A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. The orient cant represent itself

Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.