What is postmodernism?

Postmodernism can be seen as reimagining and copying things off others. In regards to art its the modern version of the earlier version but still copied from previous work.

1. Pastiche – the work of art, drama, literature, music or architecture that imitates the work of the artist.
2. Parody – is work or a performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony.
3. Bricolage  – ‘involves the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’
4. Intertextuality
5. Referential
6. Surface and style over substance and content
7. Metanarrative
8. Hyperreality – nothings really real or new as we always copy off something from earlier years.
9. Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) – imitation of a situation or process an image or representation of someone or something.
10. Consumerist Society – a society in which people often buy new goods, especially goods that they do not need, and in which a high value is placed on owning many things
11. Fragmentary Identities –
12. Alienation
13. Implosion
14. cultural appropriation
15. Reflexivity

Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy) noted the shift in modern societies particularly the impact on our ‘neighbourhood lives’, which was ‘an extremely local life, in which everything is remarkably near’

created a high polarized class division between the rich / the really super rich and the poor / underclass (ie the really, really poor) made possible through the rapid increase of new forms of technological developments.

consumption by its very nature bolsters a self-centred individualism which is the basis for stable and secure identities. Strinati (238)

Putting it very simply, the transition from substance to style is linked to a transition from production to consumption. STRINATI (235)

 ‘In a postmodern world, surfaces and style become the most important defining features of the mass media and popular culture’ Strinati (234).

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE. could be applied to both ghost town and letter to the free.

The loss of a metanarrative – ‘overarching story’ those 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

(copied from DrM post)

Fragmentary individuals.

The process of fragmentation is a key element of POSTMODERN CULTURE. The notion of separating, splitting up and dividing previously homogeneous groups such as, friends, the family, the neighbourhood, the local community, the town, the county, the country and importantly, is often linked to the process of fragmented identity construction.

Think about mobile telephony which is now able to construct multiple possibilities identities, at multiple moments in time and space. Think about the way we construct, our (multiple) digital identities, visable and varying across different digital platforms – work identity, social identity, family identity etc, which is most often not consistent with our analogue (human?) identity – look for example, at your profile pictures? This links to the work of David Gauntlet that we have looked at earlier in the course.

Fragmentary communities.

In 1959, Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy) 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‘ (1959:46). As John Urry comments, this was ‘life centred upon groups of known streets’ where there was ‘relatively little separation of production and consumption‘ (2014:76).

Urry goes on to note that the global population grew during the twentieth century from 2 to 6 billion, it’s now at 8 billion with some reports suggesting it will hit 9 million by 2037. This has given rise to mega-cities. Rather than forming mass centres of communal, shared living, such mega-cities often create more isoloation, more individualism, more fractured and alienated individuals struggling to survive and keep alive.

For many this is reflective of the new global economy (globalisation), which has created a high polarized class division between the rich / the really super rich and the poor / underclass (ie the really, really poor) made possible through the rapid increase of new forms of technological developments.

As such, another characteristic of POSTMODERN CULTURE is the emergence of FRAGMENTED COMMUNITIES. So if we are all so fragmented (communities and individuals) the only solution we have is OURSELVES . . . or INDIVIDUALISM.