Baudrillard &

Postmodernism
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The “good old days” – Postmodernism

 Life was predictable

Things were well structured and mapped out for us
 We knew who we were – a clear identity
We had firm beliefs about the nature of things
Jean Baudrillard

 He stated that “we are constantly surrounded by an ecstasy of communication

and that communication is sickening” – too much media to chose from
changing our identity
 We are now just customers whose desires are created by the media – wants
and needs are distorted by the media
 We pursue the images attached to the products
 “simulacra” – make beliefs goods which bear no relationship to the real world.
 We live in hyper- realities in which appearance's are everything – we are
constructed by an image to the way we look.
 Image is everything
 YouTube video – SY2 postmodernism
and the media
 Post modernists see society as characterised by lots of diversity and loads of preserved freedom
 Because of media and the way we consume it we have become massively globalised. Without the internet we would
be involved in just our small world such as the village you live down
 Define the identity in terms of media imagery. “I shop therefore I am”
 What you buy defines you as a person – we are slightly brainwashed by the image of advertising
 Every day in the west we will see 400-500 adverts- this therefore lets us chose who we are.
 People are creating their own identity's looking at other people and adverts such as Calvin Klein.
 We are surrounded by media all the time.
 People watch more TV then they spend reading a book, going swimming, sleep.
 People consume about 26 hours of social media and mobile technology a week
 “Screenager”
 The High level of usage of mobile phones is classed by wealth
 Proliferation -
 We are unsure what is real and what isn’t real
 Baudrillard argues that the TV news
YouTube video – SY2 postmodernism
and the media

 Simulation is a 4 stage process opf destabilizing and replacing reality

1) Faithful
2) Perversion – when you start to manipulate something
3) Pretence – presenting
4) Pure -
YouTube video – SY2 postmodernism
and the media

 Garrod 2004
 We identify more with media images than we do with our own experiences
 We get more involved on social media than what we do in real life. – we make
friends and speak to people who we don’t know more over social media
 Media creates aspiration
 High art
 The digital divide
 Post-modernism
 Hyper reality
 Media saturation - Media saturation definition, The definition of saturated is
something that is completely soaked, or something that is filled to the brim
and cannot take any more. If you believe that the media is overfull of
images of violence, this is an example of a time when you might say the
media is saturated with violent images.
 Screenagers -
Key features of post-modernism

 Consumerism is all
 Transformation of the self (‘pick’n’mix ‘)
 Uncertainty
 Fragmentation of social life
 Incessant choice
 Globalisation
 The impact of technology on social life – friends everywhere not only at
social groups
Post-modernism illustrated –
‘Disneyland’

 Disney land is a simulacra. It is a stimulated reality.

 It is artificial – yet ‘real’
 It is a place that exists and is accepted because our imagination makes it
so
 The fine line between reality and fantasy is ‘greyer’
 The power of the symbol over substance.
Post modernism and music videos
Post-modernism

 Makes the ‘new’ by referring to the ‘old’

 Invents by copying
 Is humorous and/or terrifying
 Can be created by anybody
Intertextuality in music videos

 Robbie Williams – ‘ you know me ‘

The artist is being taken to a Alice in wonderland like setting with him being
dressed like the rabbit from the film, creating intertextuality from the music
video to the film.
 Katie Perry – ‘last Friday night’
At the start of this music video there are credits and also towards the end
there is also credits. This intertextualities the style of a film.
 Taylor Swift – ‘love story’
The lyrics talk about Romeo and Juliette. The video is a modernised version of
the film relating more to the lyrics of the song.