Don’t be frightened about the term ‘postmodern’.  If the context confuses you i.e. what went before that is not overly important. In fact why not just approach the topic as this is us looking at the media that surrounds us at the moment and we are looking at various criteria that can be used to analyse, critique and review it.

Postmodern is a term used to describe much of contemporary media that surrounds us today! SIMPLES – and is can be analysed, critiqued in reference to various ideas, theories, terms etc.

Here are the key ideas that encapsulate what postmodernism is all about:-

Postmodernism:

• is a movement from the late 20th century
• represents a departure from modernism
• challenges authority
• rejects the idea of status/ value
• makes fun of existing texts – parody/satire
• is a critique of what we assume to be real
• copies ideas/styles from existing texts
• suggests there is no absolute ‘truth’ – merely socially constructed truths
• gives a skeptical interpretation
• is a reinterpretation of classical ideas, forms and practices
• questions our perception of art
• distrusts dominant ideologies
• mixes styles
• plays with reality
• challenges ‘fixed’ ideologies
• challenges the rebellion of modernism
• it is playful
• blurs reality and representation
• it looks to the past
• is really hard to define

to name just a few things…

Some key terms that we will consider over the coming weeks – pastiche, parody, quotation, intertextuality, loss of historical reality, cultural competence, hyper reality, simulacra, consumer culture, hegemony, grand narratives.