Postmodernism & Baudrillard's theory

 Postmodernism

- Referred to as an attitude of skepticism, irony or a rejection towards narratives and ideologies associated with modernism. 

Postmodernism products are thought to be from the 80's onwards, they generally contain a number of different features. For example: 

Feature 1, IRONY: When the opposite happens to what you think should of happened in a certain situation. 

Feature 2a, PARODY: References from a genre that are exaggerated through making fun of the genre of product itself. 

Feature 2b, HOMAGE: When producers includes copies from a genre or product that they like, they can be seen to pay 'homage' by respecting the product or genre they have chosen to copy. 

 

Feature 3, BRICOLAGE: Similar concept to a collage however, it involves taking audio and visual products by placing them into one big picture whereby a 'new' product gets created.

 

Feature 4, INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES: Where producers make a 'discreet' or 'direct' reference to another media product to create a meaning.

Feature 5, FRAGMENTED NARRATIVE: Refers to when the narrative jumps from past, present, future within the storyline, the difference between a 'fragmented narrative' and a 'normal narrative' is that with a normal narrative the events are linear.

 

Feature 6, SELF REFLEXIVITY: Where characters are aware that they are in a media product e.g. they talk directly to the audience. Refers to vloggers for online media. Also Deadpool is a great example relating to film.

 

Feature 7, COMMON THEMES: Postmodern products tend to be based on these theme of 'What if...'. This is a result of postmodernism being 'unreal' for example, a Sci - Fi genre could be a great example of this.

 

Feature 8, LOSS OF REALITY: Postmodern products tend to be more artificial. They contain a LACK OF 'VERISIMILITUDE' - this refers to the lack of 'realism' a product has. Nowadays, music videos lack verisimilitude through their visual aspects.

Baudrillard's theory - POSTMODERNISM: 

- Based on the difference between the 'REALITY' and the 'ARTIFICIAL REALITIES'.

- He states that we used to be surrounded by 'reality' in the media, but now we are in a world that consists of 'artificial realities'!

- He says that once we begin adapting our media products we end up moving away from the 'reality' of the concept and we enter this new world full of 'artificial realities'. 

- Now that we find ourselves in a world full of these 'artificial realities' e.g. SIMULARCAS it becomes very hard to tell apart the 'reality' from the 'artificial reality' - this is known as a 'HYPER REALITY'. 

- Media products nowadays have to be considered in terms of how real they ACTUALLY are! Are they reality, truth or a constructed product that has been made to look like reality?!

- Baudrillard says we can't tell the difference between what is 'REAL' and what is 'SIMILARCA'. For example, within music videos, is the artists portray really who they are as a person or are they an artificial reality i.e. a similarcua?