Media & Social Conditioning - Alex Jones

1:25:00 - 1:35:00
Loosing faith in Grand Narratives
Social Conditioning

Marking Criteria

Homework due Thurs 31st May

Time Trumpet example

How does this show what Pseudo/Digi/Post-Postmodern

Post-Postmodernism & Alan Kirby

Alan Kirby & 'Digimodernism' An Introduction

Postmodernism Is Dead! Article (originally Kirby called this 'Psuedomodernism') 2006

Digimodernism: An Introduction [edited since lesson]

Introduction

Since its first appearance in the second half of the 1990s under the [drive] of new technologies, digimodernism has decisively displaced postmodernism to establish itself as the twenty-first century’s new cultural [landscape].

It owes its emergence and pre-eminence to the
computerization of text, which yields a new form of textuality characterized by onwardness [exploration], haphazardness [randomness], evanescence [disappearance], and anonymous, social and multiple authorship [production/creation]. These in turn become the [defining characteristics] of a group of texts in new and established modes which also [demonstrate] the digimodernist traits of infantilism [childishness], earnestness [seriousness], endlessness
[free of boundaries] and apparent reality.

Digimodernist texts are found across contemporary culture, ranging from “reality TV” to Hollywood fantasy blockbusters, from Web 2.0 platforms to the most sophisticated videogames.

In its pure form the digimodernist text permits the reader or viewer to intervene textually, to physically make the text, to add visible content or tangibly shape narrative development.

Hence “digimodernism”, properly understood as a contraction of “digital modernism”, is a pun: it’s where digital technology meets textuality and text is (re)formulated by the fingers
and thumbs (the digits) clicking and keying and pressing in the positive act of partial or

obscurely-collective textual elaboration.

Of all the definitions of postmodernism, the form of digimodernism recalls the one given by Fredric Jameson. It too is “a dominant cultural norm”; not a blanket description of all contemporary cultural production but “the force field in which very different kinds of cultural...production… must make their way”.

Twenty years later, however, the horizon has changed; the dominant cultural force field and systematic norm is different: what was postmodernist is now

digimodernist.

The relationships between digimodernism and postmodernism are various.

First, digimodernism is the successor to postmodernism: emerging in the mid-late 1990s, it gradually eclipsed it as the dominant cultural, technological, social and political expression of our times.

Second, in its early years a burgeoning digimodernism co-existed with a weakened, retreating postmodernism; it’s the era of the hybrid or borderline text (The Blair Witch Project, The Office, the Harry Potter novels).

Third. Digimodernism is a reaction against postmodernism: certain of its traits (earnestness, the apparently real) resemble a [rejection] of typical postmodern characteristics. [like postmodernism did with modernism? Rich]

Fourth, historically side by side and expressed in part through the same cultural forms (CGI films, games, reality tv), digimodernism appears socially and politically as the logical effect of postmodernism, suggesting a [development on from] more than a [break]. These versions of the relationship between the two are not incompatible but reflect their highly complex, multiple identities. [fluid/complication of identities? Rich]

[Is} there is such a thing as “digimodernity”? Have entered into a totally new phase of history?

Postmodernism insisted on locating an absolute break in all human experience between the disappeared past [Dislocated Narratives in time & place] and the stranded present [no future, where do we go?] but has this lost all plausibility. Modernity continued throughout this period as an “unfinished project”.

Although the imponderable evils of the 1930s and 40s [WW2, Atomic Bomb] could only trigger a breakdown of faith in inherited cultural and historical world-views, the nature and scale of this reaction were overstated by some writers [French dead ones...]

In so far as it exists, “digimodernity” is, then, another stage within modernity, a shift from one phase of its history into another.

Digimodernism, as well as a break in textuality, brings a new textual form, content and value, new kinds of cultural meaning, structure and use, and they will be the object of this book.

In [Death of Postmodernism] I called what I now label digimodernism “pseudo-modernism”...The notion of pseudo-modernity is one aspect of digimodernism. The article was written largely in the spirit of intellectual

provocation; uploaded to the Web, it drew a response which eventually persuaded me the subject deserved more detailed and scrupulous attention.

I begin by assessing the case for the decline and fall since the mid-late 1990s of postmodernism, in part as a way of outlining the context within which its successor appeared.

WHAT CAUSED IT?_

WHAT ARE ITS TRAITS?_

WHAT EXAMPLES?_

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUDIENCE & TEXT?_

WHEN IS IT, POST-POSTMODERNISM?_

HOW ARE ITS TRAITS DIFFERENT TO POSTMODERNISM?_

WHAT SIMILARITIES DOES IT SHARE WITH POSTMODERNISM?_

WHEN DID POSTMODERNISM DECLINE/FALL?_

WRITE A 1 SENTENCE SUMMARY DEFINITION: WHAT IS POST-POSTMODERNISM?_

Mock 2 Forms & Conventions - Kirsten

Postmodernism is a reaction to modernist times and is seen as a response that challenges the forms and conventions of traditional media. This shift to post-modernism is down to new technology and the saturation of media texts, the idea that nothing is ever new and the high lack of faith in any new ideas. In a modern era there would be regular improvements made to science and technology and this would be highly celebrated, however in today’s world this is seen to be very different with people caring more about technology for technologies sake and not the science behind it. This links to the idea of style over substance as in today’s world [don’t use this - the term is Postmodernity] for example, it has been shown through fashion and new technology that the meaning behind it is no longer important and instead we care much more about the appearance and style of it. The most apparent style of a modern world was that is was a very structured era, with all media texts having a specific structure and meaning behind them. However due to blurring and breaking down of any kind of structure in today's world we are now living in a very hyper-real state where nothing has a specific order or meaning and its simply about the style and popularity. Good well done!

The Gorillaz are to be considered a very Post-Modern band as they go against all main modernist beliefs with the band itself being virtual and each band member being an animated simulation of the human band member. The theory behind Simulacra was thought up by Baudrillard as he speaks about it being an 'artificial representation of reality that no longer bare any resemblance to the original', this is a very post-modern theory as it speaks about the belief that nothing is ever new and is always a copy of a copy, very good therefore linking this to the band as the animated characters are a copy of the band members, therefore making these 'characters'. Representation? It is also suggested in a post-modern world that the 'real' and 'un-real' is no longer apparent, which is represented clearly in this band as people are paying money to go see an animated band that are being perceived as real life musicians showing the collapse and blurring of what is reality and what is unreal. This also then follows onto Debords theory of 'the society of the spectacle' and how society is now only interested in the 'style over the substance' he also speaks about how the originality is all lost and it no longer matters about the songwriting and us as a society care more about the image and performance. But why is this challenging Modernism - what is being rejected from traditional Ideology, Representation, Genre etc? This Post-modern theory is shown clearly by the Gorillaz as there biggest selling point is their animated (CGI) characters therefore showing how image is their most important aspect and a modern audience no longer care for the music and more about the hyper-real and simulated band performing in front of them with the use of holographic technology. [The Postmodern audience in fact prefer this] As the Gorillaz are seen to be so real there is a sense of voyeurism as they are made out to have real personalities and a true virtual identity and background life story which is shown through their music videos and other media texts, and so therefore these are watched upon by an audience, which is a very big part of the gorillaz live performance as the audience become obsessed with watching the animated band on large screens. Here you must explain why this challenges Forms - which - genre? Representation? Audience? Ideology of Modernism? This idea of voyeurism shows how this post-modern world is full of a society that is overwhelmed and dependant upon visual intake of different media texts. Gorillaz are considered to be an electric band with a mix of different genres this mixing and blurring of genres is very commonly heard and seen in modern??? you mean Postmodern music and films, with the Post-modern convention for this being called hybridity. This also relates to the bands style as they mix high art of being an animatic band with different genres of music. The main Post-modern form that this band clearly shows is its superficial, there is no real meaning behind the animated characters displayed and they are simply there for entertainment purposes as an audience today care very little about the music and more about what they are watching with a huge lack of depth and meaning in the music behind the band. Good, well done.

With the Gorillaz band being known mainly for their style I am now looking into the TV show XFactor as this focuses more on the audience and their interaction with the show. In a modern era it was an important factor for a TV show to be structured with a beginning, middle and end, and the audience having no choice as to how it ended. However the Xfactor has taken on a very Post-modern style as they have challenged this form and convention with the audience being the main body of the show as without an audience there would be no show. The audience themselves are able to vote for their favourite acts resulting in the winner of the show. Good As the audience is lead to believe that they are in full control and without their money and votes then the 'most talented' artist won't win and go on to become 'famous'. However this is shown not to be true  as it has been shown time and time again over the last few years that in fact the runners up of the show become more famous than the winners and so therefore the audience voting and spending their money each week don't have as much control as they seem to think. This therefore shows how this post-modern convention involving audience in tv shows isn't as effective as we may think and to a certain extent doesn't challenge the modern form of an audience having no control over an ending and what happens to an artist.  Fair point, well done The xfactor is to be considered a fully simulated show with each artist on their performing an existing song with a few notes being changed here and there, this backs up the post-modern theory that nothing is ever an original anymore, with the artists simply copying a band/artists song already known in the music industry. What is this challenging? Ideology, Representation?  This involves the audience as they are able to sing along to the show with songs they already know, also with the show doing themes each week this tells the audience what to expect, which would be seen as a modern convention with the idea of a storyline of what is already going to happen. Good

So with both the obvious sense of style over substance and a programme being controlled by an audience being effective in today's world, I feel it fair to say this will be the case for our future. With the idea that nothing is ever a new thought or design and with this being apparent with everything around us then it has been shown clear to us that we are unable to make any further changes or improvements and it to be even now a very distopian world we live in.

Very good effort Kirsten, could draw a few more points about regarding how it challenges forms -
Ideology: High Culture (Art, Opera etc) vs Popular culture (mainstream disposable) who decides, experts or popularism? Music first or Image first. Fame for a reason or just for sake of fame.

Representation: Hyper-reality, the boundaries between the real and the simulated collapsing, preference for the fake (Xfactor). Fluid idenitities

Demonstrates good understanding of the concepts around PoMo, and you are confident with debates and theory. Well done.

B

Handout - Flow & Immersion, Fluid Identities

3.40 TO END

2mins to end... Immersion & Flow









Cbs News Story - GTA 18yr old Murders 

Misfits watch 5:40 - 9:20

Homework due Thurs 24th May

Task 1

Look over the Article, blog on Fluid Identities & Is Gaming Postmodern and rewatch the Animations created by the students today.

Ensure you are able to present  a response to the above question in green.

STretch & chal;lenfge for L4 students:
Read over the Article on Digimodernism to prepare for next week
Link

Are Games Post-Modern?

Foucault: Fluid Identities - Not Fixed

We often talk about people as if they have particular attributes as 'things' inside themselves -- they have an identity, for example, and we believe that at the heart of a person there is a fixed and true identity or character (even if we're not sure that we know quite what that is, for a particular person). We assume that people have an inner essence -- qualities beneath the surface which determine who that person really 'is'. We also say that some people have (different levels of) power which means that they are more (or less) able to achieve what they want in their relationships with others, and society as a whole.


Foucault rejected this view. For Foucault, people do not have a 'real' identity within themselves; that's just a way of talking about the self -- adiscourse. An 'identity' is communicated to others in your interactions with them, but this is not a fixed thing within a person. It is a shifting, temporary construction.


Gamer clip 1

Gamer clip 2

Homework due Thursday 12th May

1. Read The Article on Post-Modern Audiences

2. Pitch me your idea for a TV show in 2020 (predictions of where you think Pomo Media is headed - this must be in your exam answer) - these will be filmed as a proper pitch in front of green screen.

Its 2022. Write a 50 word treatment for a new TV show format that shows your opinion of where Post-Modern TV will go based on what we have studied. 

(Think of  the development of Interactivity, Web 2.0, Facebook, Social Networking, The Active Audience & Prosumers, Youtube, how the changes in the Music Industry you studied last year could affect the TV Industry?)

3. A 5 paragraph response to the essay question: "To what extent do Post-Modernism challenge form and conventions of traditional media", use the H/W Articles to help you

i) Write 1 paragraph with your answer - Do they/Don't they & in what different ways? (Gorillaz and Reality TV (XFactor/TOWIE) 

ii) 1 paragraph explain how Gorillaz are Post-Modern (challenging what Modernist forms/style?) with Theory

iii) 1 paragraph explain how TOWIE & Xfactor are Post-Modern (challenging what Modernist forms/style?) with Theory

iv) 1 paragraph explain how each text does not challenge traditional forms & style

v) A prediction of where Post-modern music or TV is headed, how will it develop from this?

Resources:

Post-Modern style & forms:

Past Questions

What is meant by ‘postmodern media’?

Why are some media products described as ‘postmodern’?
 

Explain how certain kinds of media can be defined as postmodern.
 

Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial
 

“Postmodern media blur the boundary between reality and representation.” Discuss this idea with reference to media texts that you have studied.
 

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

To what extent does a Postmodern text of your choice challenge existing forms and conventions of traditional media?

All require:

1. A comparison of 2 x Contemporary PoMo Media (Style vs themes/forms)
2. 1 Historical reference (Earlier post-modern text - how it has developed eg Fight Club/Matrix/Music Video)
3. A Future prediction (all films CGI like Scott Pilgrim, will there be a rejection of PoMo? All shows vacuous & empty fake TOWIE, all show audience involved like Xfactor, DIGI-MODERNISM)
4. Arguments for and against how they are/aren't post-modern
5. Examples

PoMo Blurs Binary opposites: Real/Unreal, Audience/Text, Fixed Identity/Fluid Identity, Man/Machine?

Link

The distrust towards the revolutionary projects of modernity may help explain postmodernism's more relaxed attitude towards the media as a whole. While the media was generally dismissed by modernism as standardized, formulaic and shallow, postmodernism tends to celebrate popular culture generally for its implicit refusal to look for deep universal truths, tending instead to embrace image, surface and ‘depthlessness'.

 This may help explain why postmodern aesthetics appear to indulge in increased levels of intertextuality, generic hybridity, self-reflexivity, pastiche, parody, recycling and sampling. Such characteristics may be seen as reflecting a world where traditional binary oppositions such as ‘fact' and ‘fiction', the ‘real' and the ‘unreal', the ‘authentic' and the ‘inauthentic' are less clear than they may have once seemed.

Indeed, some postmodern critics argue that it is now increasingly impossible to distinguish between the media ‘image' and the ‘real' - each ‘pair has become so deeply intertwined that is difficult to draw the line between the two of them'. In a contemporary society the simulated copy has now even superseded the original object. This phenomenon Baudrillard refers to as the ‘third order of simulacra' which produces a state of ‘hyperreality'.

It is not that simply the line between the media image and the real have become blurred; it is more that the media image and the real are now part of the same entity and are therefore now unable to be separated at all. Some critics have even suggested that the differences between human and machine is now beginning to disappear, tending to eradicate the old ‘human' versus ‘technology' binary opposition upon which so much of the pessimistic theories of modernism were based.

Although the idea of the cyborg (a hybrid of machine and organism) may still be in its scientific infancy, feminist critics already use it as a metaphor for the power to deconstruct essentialist notions of gender and identity in a ‘posthuman' world. For some critics, then, such a theoretical framework gives us a new critical arena through which we can start to understand and account for various aspects of New Media. For example, the postructuralist and postmodernist distrust of a stable and fixed notion of the ‘real' tends to reflect the landscape of New Media where such traditional definitions are increasingly becoming problematized by new technologies.

With the arrival of artificial intelligence, cyberculture, virtual communities and virtual reality, our sense of what is ‘real' and what is ‘unreal' is clearly undergoing a dramatic transformation. 
[Facebook 'friends' - Rich]

For example, real existing companies now place advertisements in virtual worlds like Second Life, an artificial environment which affects real existing sales.

So how can we separate the ‘real' in this example from the ‘virtual'? What part of this virtual world is ‘real' and what part of it is not? Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it is an illustration of the wider kinds of technological and cultural change that developments in New Media are currently producing. As this suggests, this problematizing of what we once recognized as ‘real' will inevitably influence the very notion we may have of an ‘authentic self', the conception of identity in a postmodern world becoming increasingly fluid and contestable. In particular, it has been argued that the increased interactivity of New Media generally allows audiences to play around with and make their own composite identities from various and sometimes even contradictory sources. This process is referred to by some as ‘DIY citizenship', the notion that the media now allows us to all create our own complex, diverse and many faceted notions of personal identity.

With so many different communities now open to us on the web, we can begin to simply pick and choose which identities we want to adopt and which ones we want to reject, allowing an individual to decide how they define themselves rather than simply having to stick to the narrow and limited number of choices that once defined the past. This is in stark contrast to a world where identity is primarily a matter of heritage.

This fluid notion of identity certainly appears to be in direct contrast to the concept of citizenship and identity that was propagated by the underpinnings that informed the roots of modernism, particularly a concept like public service broadcasting. Postmodernist critics might argue that even the notion of ‘broadcasting' itself is a totalizing concept which was never able to successfully reflect the sheer diversity of a nation or its people.

The phrase ‘narrowcasting' - that is used to denote New Media's pronounced interest in addressing and catering for niche audiences - perhaps better encapsulates the role of television and radio in a world of multimedia. As we have seen, the increased interactivity of audiences in a New Media context is also articulated in poststructuralist theory whose tendency is to conceive the audience as active participators in the creation of meaning.

Websites like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook appear to reflect this recent understanding of ‘participatory culture'; not only creating virtual communities but also allowing audiences to become ‘producers' as well as ‘receivers' of the media. Theories of ‘fandom' are important here with the Internet allowing the fans of different forms of culture to create virtual communities that add to the original understanding and even content of their chosen interests. For example, the rise of ‘slash fiction' allows audiences to actively participate in the production of meaning by creating extratextual material about their favourite television programmes.

Consequently, rather than being seen as essentially commercial and inactive, in a postmodern world consumption itself is now regarded as a positive and participatory act. Indeed, the ‘top-down' cultural ‘uplift' seems particularly redundant in a world where audiences are increasingly determining their own choice of media and what they do with it. The hypertextual ‘cut' and ‘paste' culture of New Media - that seemingly encourages sampling, poaching and remixing - produces not only copyright problems, it also further confuses the very means by which we conceive of the media and its relationship with its audience. [Remember last year Music Industry?] 

Certainly, the idea that a media organization like the BBC could so rigidly dictate public tastes seems almost unimaginable now. We may now require a completely new theory of authorship to help us understand the current relationship between the media and its audience.

Post-Modern Audience Theories - Read & Exemplify

Postmodern Audiences

The impact of postmodern media on audiences and the ways in which we think about texts.


How do post-modern media texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation? In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?


• have audiences become accustomed to the stimulation and excitement of spectacular films/games and a sense of spectacle has become something that (young?) audiences increasingly demand from cultural experiences?

• has narrative coherence become less important for audiences?

• in terms of ideas, has cultural material become more simplistic and superficial, and audiences are no longer so concerned with the process of understanding a text. Think here about a film like Scott Pilgrim where the plot is in some sense irrelevant to the overall impact of the film.

• has the attention span of audiences reduced as they become increasingly accustomed to the spectacle-driven and episodic nature of postmodern texts

• in its ‘waning of affect’, has postmodernism contributed to audiences become emotionally detached from what they see. They are desensitised and unable to respond ‘properly’ to suffering and joy.

• has postmodernism contributed to a feeling among audiences that arts and culture does not really have anything to tell us about our own lives and instead simply provides us with somewhere we can escape or retreat to

 a ‘postmodern’ blurring of boundaries between industrial practices, technologies, and cultural forms - Participatory Media: With participatory media, the boundaries between audiences and creators become blurred and often invisible.

X-Factor, Music & Post-Modern TV (PoMo Audience)

 As voted by the Audience: Only Way Is Essex Wins BAFTA

 Foucault & The Panopticon

Discuss: Charlie Brooker/Jade Goody

 Example: Charlie Brooker Aspirational TV




Blurring boundaries between traditional forms of Media