Postmodernism emphasizes style over substance and challenges traditional notions of art, truth, and linear narratives. Key aspects include the breakdown of distinctions between high and low culture, an emphasis on bricolage and mixing of cultural forms, and questioning of objective truths and meta-narratives through techniques like self-referentiality, deconstruction, and challenging hierarchies. Postmodern culture is characterized by constant remaking and influences between new and old works, with reality being blurred by media like music videos and photography.

1. Postmodernism
Key Features
The breakdown of the distinction
between culture and society.
Creates confession within and
audience.
Involving
substance
and content.
Emphasis on
style
No piece of work is ever
perfect. Modernism is all
about improvement.
Improvements then
help to create new
ideas, for new projects.
Anything can be
considered art, which can
be shown to an audience.
Music video &
postmodernism
Music videos are normally
presented within the ‘three minute
culture’. This is so the audiences
attention is captured. Combines
fast editing & intense imagery. The
theory of the ‘structures of feeling’
or a ‘cultural logic’. The ‘society of
spectacle’ was created by Guy
Debord.
Simulacra &
Simulation
(Baudrillard)
Causality
Stories now don't follow a cause-
and-effect pattern, but can mess
with linearity and consequence.
Stories can change the notion of
‘meaning’.
Bricolage
Two cultures that come together,
can change its meaning.
Punk socialists (The Clash) have a
very different ethos to neo-Nazi
punks (swastika sporting).
The zenith of cultural
production
A culture which ‘eats itself’
with everything being made.
Culture must remake itself.
Artist products can be
influenced by its predecessors
Meta-narratives
Narrative structure that
play with causality &
linearity.
Boundary between the real and
imagined mixes together. The link
between media and reality collapses.
This is then a form of hyper-reality,
which is part of our real life involving
media.
‘Truth’ is merely
a concept
There is no right or wrong, but many
different versions. Propaganda is largely
used when regarding ‘truth’, which can
change its meaning every time. Reality itself
now has changed due to adverts, films, TV
e.c.t ; Photoshop can also change the way
reality is seen.
Hall of mirrors
effect/paradoxical
This can be shown through a
story-in-a-story-in-a-story, which
creates an illusion. Oxymoronic
e.g. ‘loving hate’ again creates
illusion and ambiguity in the post-
modern world.
Hierarchies of taste
High and low culture
mixing together, creating a
new meaning.
Self-conscience
Breaking the forth wall and talking to
the audience. An example of this
could be either in a film or book
where the author or character
addresses that there is an audience
watching.
Deconstructing
Deconstruction is analysing a media
product and understanding the intended
message. Revealing how the creator put
it together e.g. through images , sounds
and other elements.
Subversive