1) What is meant by Postmodern media?
2) Explain why the idea of "Postmodern media" might be considered controversial.
3) Why are some media products defined as postmodern?
4) "Postmodern texts blur the boundaries between reality and representation" Discuss this idea with reference to media texts that you have studied.
5) Discuss 2 or more media texts that you would define as postmodern and explain why you would give them this label. Cover at least 2 media in your answer.
6) Consider the ways postmodern media challenge conventional relations between audience and text. Refer to at least 2 media forms in your answer.
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(expand on this by analyzing and comparing a companion text such as Call of duty or reality programs such as big brother, offering a completely different media, but that relates to the main theorist, expand on Jean Baudriard section as it strongly ties in with the question and the text's being covered)
4) "Postmodern texts blur the boundaries between reality and representation" Discuss this idea with reference to media texts that you have studied."
Madmen
Introduction;
The interesting thing about the following two texts (Madmen and Big Brother) is the way in which they blur the boundaries between reality and representation whilst being two completely different programs. A common feature of postmodern texts is the way that they split the gap between fiction and non fiction to create a sort of hyper-fiction.
A post modern program involves a far more aesthetic approach to narrative than the classical convention of modernism. The way that post modern media brings together the characters into a cohesive and continuos plot is through micro narratives surrounding each character involved in detail whilst through some lovel level, inconspicuous task such as work collages in a work place (Madmen, the office etc).
The program Madmen is postmodern, if only for the fact that it is set in a version of 1950's America, a version mimicking all of the programs from the 1950's but with modern humour and the questioning of convention's. For instance the first show is set around trying to promote Cigarettes when health administrations are trying to claim that it is a poisonous, bad product. Cigarettes were seen as a normal part of life in the 1950's, however the program ironically challenges this.
Though more of the 1950's correctness is mocked, only on the back of the main target of cigarettes however in the episode. There is a certain confrontation being exhibited by the character of Saul, who sticks out like a saw thumb. The behavior he projects is that of a modern-day stereotype in the vain of flamboyant homosexual. For instance, when the main character and Saul are conversing on a cigarette advertisement design, Saul simply shows the lead character a picture of a half naked man with a packet of cigarettes.
The lead then attempts to hint at something is missing, eventually telling him to put a woman in it, to which Saul acts disgruntled and shocked. The irony in his open-denial is that the other characters seems oblivious of his eccentric antics which further confuse the audience who can see it plainly. This is mimicking the shut off, conventional way of thinking of modernism, taken largely from the programs the show is based off creating a pastiche-like cast of characters.
The main character cross's the conventions of many set 1950's boundaries, he cheats on his wife, he makes presentations spontaneously on the fly and he doesn't believe in love. The conversation where he discuss's his views on love is very important in this regard as the woman he is talking with suggests that he is "Out of place" and "Different from other men". This is the program letting the audience know that this is postmodern as it is indirectly, directly saying that a character doesn't belong within the conventional setting of a illusion/ altered of 1950's America.
The theroists which I think most apply to this show is Jean Baudriard and Michel Foucault. Jeans theories of The lost of history and consumer society, "A culture of consumption has so much taken over our ways of thinking that all reality is filtered through the logic of exchange value and advertising." The show is based on advertising, there is massive amounts of humour in the ironic vien when for instance the cigarette firm are seeing a pitch, and say there's nothing wrong with smoking, get out cigarettes and start coughing up bad.
Michel Foucault "He argued that there is no "objective truth" and that all knowledge is told by someone or institution and __is the product of whoever has power. It is always told from a point of view." This program does touch on this topic and somewhat more in later episodes when the company begins shooting advertisement commercials.
Big Brother on the other hand deals with these themes in a more secretive way, by giving the illusion that what the audience is seeing isn't stage, while all the time setting parameters and rules for the house mates to live by; even going as far as the audience having direct input (who stays in till the end). This shows a massive amount of active audience being applied to the program in a very literal sense.
This literal take on the core concepts of Postmodernism is an aspect that Big Brother uses to its aid, it is one of the encompassing features of the show is the way it apply's the theories literally, thus crossing the boundary of theory in postmodern texts.
The other aspect of Big Brother which really stands out in contrast to Madmen specifically is the way in which it doesn't tell a grand story, but many smaller more intimate stories. The audience can become attached in a way to different characters just from the eerie scenes of watching house-mates sleeping or showering. The level of detail and at times obscurity and lack of meaning to the narrative lead people to become so frustrated with the continual lack of continuity that they keep watching to try and make sense of it, all the while it lacking any real sense than what they apply to it.
I this because I think the shows require a lot of context and interpretation to bare any meaning to the audience. They don't exhibit clear moral dilemmas but more complex and seemingly innocuous plot devices which hide grand metaphors behind possible phrases as,"Who ever stole my toast is gonna get a forkin'!" - This is made up, but I have heard such things spouted out on Big Brother when I've seen it in the past.
To end, I believe Madmen has a lot going on in it and would be a prime example to study, as for the numerous different angles you could come at it from. Big Brother is like a staple foundation of Postmodernism and I think a deeper analysation of its behaviour and effects on people may be a logical route to use it as contrast. The way that people swarm to it, speak about it almost biblically and even grow as stronger feelings as love and hate seems almost like a form of media manipulation.
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