Revision

1) Define - postmodernism?

• relationship to modernism

• traditional ideas + structure

• rejects this

2) Apply characteristics to the three texts:

• empty, superficial, hyper-real (can see in media texts, style, Jameson etc.)

3) Apply thinking PoMo to the three texts:

• argue that this is a structure

4) Historical Approach:

• Tron 1982 to Social Media + Gaming (present)

• Sims, GTA etc. more PoMo

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Exam Questions

1. How do Post modernism media texts challenge additional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?

• Challenges it, collapses it
• Immersion
• Gaming + Social Media
• Black Mirror + Wreck It Ralph are post-modern BUT to a certain reason and EXTENT!! (Doesn't challenge text reader relations, film and old gaming we're invented years before) MODERNIST FORMS. They are stylistically post-modern (Intertexuality, nostalgia and style over substance) BUT theoretically uses PoMo ideas
• "Post-Modern media texts don't challenge text-reader relations however Digi-modern texts challenge it massively." Mr Barton
• Simulated (Sims, GTA etc.), fluid identity

2. How does PoMo make a text a richer experience for audience?

3. To what extent can some texts be considered PoMo?

Grand Theft Auto Gameplay

• Baudrillard - Hyperreality, exaggerated (fire explosion)

• Simulation - Unlimited lives

• Promiscuous - Nightlife, prostitutes etc.

• Fluid Identities

• Sadistic - hurt/kill without consequence

• Commodity - Stealing money, consumerism, buying guns and cars etc.

• Power + Control ( Panopticon) - no power in real life, urges, society doesn't condone violence yet these videos do

• Voyeurism (sexual posters,violence against   women)

• Grand Narratives - no belief that anything will get better, submerged in the game/the violence

• Audience + Text - control the outcome of the story.

There are 3 ways gaming can be postmodern:

1. Historical

2. Theoretical

3. Stylistic

Gaming is post-modern, filming and TV are modern.

When we're looking at stylistic, hyper-reality and simulation shows it is the most powerful way it can be post-modern.

DeBord tells us that we're buying fake stuff to express the fake real. The problem is that when your confronted with reality it will never live up to it.

Foucault tells us that fluid identities can happen when there is a loss of morality, we can become violent and different in games than what we are in real life.

What was postmodernist is now digimodernist.

DIGIMODERNISM

Digimodernism is a rejection of postmodern ideas. It is created from a development in technology. It is about the strengthening of simulation. Digimodernism has rejected morality and taken a trait of childishness. We've left post-modernism as it starts to decline, existing at the same state then going into Digi-modernism. 

Cultural autism where we can't interact with other people. 

Conclusion of Digi-Modernism

Technology has brought us to a place in history that has allowed us to produce simulations (avatars, 2nd lives, Hyperreality, immersive reality) - this is postmodernism, the collapse of the real and artificial. Baudrillard suggested we could no longer tell the difference - we are lost in simulation. This opens us up to the concept through familiarity with virtual worlds/ virtual identities that reality itself is a Simulation. Ironically - by moving to Digimodernism (Post Post-modernism) we find ourselves in Plato's cave. 

Post Modern Audiences

The postmodern audience has more control through showing something is popular. Social media gives you the ability to make something trend. Hierarchy gives the audience the power to choose something that is morally and not culturally good. The audience watch with a sense of irony (ironic position/detached position). 

Do audiences like empty texts?

- We could argue this because of Black Mirror.

Has good narratives become important for audiences?

- No, style over substance.

To what extent are the texts 'Wreck-Ralph' and Black Mirror's 'Fifteen Million Merits' modern or post-modern?

Post-Modern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. Anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience, and culture 'eats itself' as there is no longer anything new to produce. There are three ways media can be post-modern, these are historical, stylistic and theoretical. The two texts that I will study are the film 'Wreck-It Ralph' and an episode from the Television series 'Black Mirror'. 'Wreck-It Ralph' is to an extent post-modern, as the Disney film includes elements of nostalgia which shows Jameson's theory that because we no longer believe in a better future, we are constantly recycling the past. Also, the use of intertextuality and parody throughout the film collapses the Grand Narratives. However, 'Wreck-It Ralph' can't be called a post-modern film as it is a Disney film intended to bring laughter and joy to young audiences and adults alike, not make them question society. In 'Black Mirror', the episode 'Fifteen Million Merits' shows a future where peoples lives are determined by how much 'merits' they have, in which they earn by powering energy from cycling. The dystopian world shows that the more 'merits' you have, the power you have. However what is disturbing about the episode is that the future isn't that far from the present day consumerism. Baudrillard's ideas of simulacra and hyper-reality are present in the episode from the Mii-like avatar's to the parody of the X Factor and all the lack of real-life in between. 'Black Mirror' is more post-modern as they use more theories to create a warning. Whereas 'Wreck-It Ralph' has a stylistic approach to create nostalgia. The Historical approach to post-modernism features the collapse of modern views on government and society that people started to lose belief in the system and saw that nothing would get better. It was the end of progress and the belief in grand narratives coined by Lyotard. Jameson's theories were a Stylistic stance to post-modernism, with his main idea about the fact that there is no progress so we recycle the old, which makes  it nostalgic and retro, for example, the film 'Wreck-It Ralph'. The four theorists who took a Theoretical approach to post modernism are Lyotard, Baudrillard, Debord and Foucault. Lyotard believed in the death of the 'Grand Narrative' which means that we no longer believe in a better future, that we are just recycling things from the past. People didn't believe that there was any moral culture anymore and the growing consumerism has made the value of everything to become 'empty'. Baudrillard coined the theory which included hyper-reality and simulacra, which meant that people started to lose belief in reality, therefor there was a collapse between what's real and what's artificial. Escapism was the only way of coping. Debord believed in style over substance, that most things don't have meaning anymore. He wrote about this in his theory and called it the 'Society of the Spectacle'. Where consumerism in society leaves people wanting more. Foucault  believed in 'The Panopticon', which is the idea that we are all captive in are own lives, under constant surveillance. His theory also tells us that the people in the power are the ones that hold the truth. 'Black Mirror' uses a theoretical approach to post-modernism which makes it more post-modern than Wreck-It Ralph's stylistic approach.

Lyotard believed in the 'Grand Narrative' and the end of progress. He believed that when we lose belief that anything is going to get better we get simulacra and hyper-reality as a form of escapism. His theory came after modernism and was a rejection of people who believed in 'the system'. As there is a loss in faith in anything new we are recycling the old which is known as cultural recycling. 'Wreck-It Ralph' is an example of where boundaries collapse between genres. For example, when Ralph is tired of always being the villain, he decides to enter the game 'Heroes Duty' where he will gain the gold medal and become the hero. The game shows a world of dystopia that is the complete opposite to the world Ralph lives in.

Black Mirror Assessment

Simulacra & Hyper-reality

"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less meaning." - Jean Baudrillard.

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE.

Society of the Spectacle

"Capitalism has reinforced its control over the masse through the transformation of culture as a whole into a commodity - something to be bought and sold. Thus the spectacle is not much a set of particular cultural or media events and images, - like say the X Factor final - but characterises the entire social world today as an illusion, a separate form, or masking of, real life" - Mike Googan.

NO BELIEF, STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE, CONSUMERISM.

Panoptic Postmodern Futures

"Reality TV is a collective expression of the Panoptic (obsession)...it offers a glimpse into the different potential futures that postmodernism can take. What is reality television then, and what makes it so appealing? Reality television occurs when Regular Joe People, like you or me, play themselves on TV. Of course this alone would be boring. So reality television consists of putting ordinary people into extraordinary and unexpected situations. Why is this interesting to others?...The watcher...performs an immediate reflexivity in which the watcher becomes, in their own mind, the watched" - Joshua Kane.

PRISON - UNDER CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE.

Summary of Article: http://leighmediaa2pomo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/15-million-merits-postmodernism-essay.html

I think that the article is saying that 'Black Mirror' isn't just representing a future but parts of the present reality. The article explains that 'Black Mirror' was made to be so uncomfortable to watch because it could be our future if we carry on down the path we are on. 'Black Mirror' is post-modern because it highlights how we look towards television and technology.