Readings - John Storey (Week 4)

Postmodernism is defined as, "a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterised by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions."

John Storey (2007) writes that postmodernism is a term widely used within popular culture, and describes it as 'a populist attack on the elitism on modernism."

Postmodernism in the 1960s

The term 'postmodernism" has been in circulation since in 1870s, however Storey explains that it was only begun to be understood around the late 1950s. He discusses the term referring to many theorists who also studied its meanings, causes and future in society.

It was described in 1966 by Susan Sontag as being, "a sensibility in revolt against the canonisation of modernism’s avant-garde revolution; it attacks modernism’s official status," relating back to Arnold's theories and thoughts. This shows how the younger generations in the 1960s confronted the modernist movement and revolted against against, similarly to what the Frankfurt School 
theorised about sub-cultures.

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1979)

Lyotard was the first academic to introduce the term in to circulation, within his works The Postmodernism Collection. He exclaimed how it was marked by a status of knowledge in Western societies and how it will teach people how to use knowledge as a form of cultural and economic capital.

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard

A high profile postmodernist theorist, Baudrillard saw that there had been a historical shift in the West, from a society based on the production of things to one based on the production of information and knowledge, backing up Lyotard's theories. 

He speaks about hyperrealism as being a characteristic mode of postmodernity, decribing it as the 'real' and the imaginary continually collapsing in to each other. Storey includes modern day examples of this to help the reader to understand, for example when fans write to soap stars as if they are real people and not just characters. 

Frederic Jameson

Postmoderism is "the distinction between “high” and “low” culture seems less and less meaningful" (Jameson, 1988). An American Marxist cultural critic, Jameson insisted that postmodernism can best be theorised from within a Marxist or neo-Marxist framework, looking at the cultural dominant within Western capitalist socieities.

This shows how each theorists views overlap as they all focus on Western society and how this is primarily where postmodernism lies. 

Convergence culture

Convergence culture is "Where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways"(Henry Jenkins, 2006)

I found this really interesting, as Storey explains how flow of media across different platforms has developed, relating to the theorists ideas about the Western world. He goes on to tell the reader how this requires the active participation.