3. Economic production is industrial
and capitalist, with social class as the
main form of social division. Social
classes are based on people’s social
and economic position.
4. • The growth of cities, or urbanisation. During
the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries thousands
of people moved to cities to find work and
make their homes.
5. • A powerful central government and
administration, known as a bureaucratic
state. Local and central government have
played an ever increasing part in our lives, the
development of compulsory education, public
housing and the welfare state for example.
6. People’s knowledge is derived from
scientific and rational thinking rather than
religious faith, magic or superstition. During
this period people have looked to science
and logical thinking to explain the world.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, for
example, have tended to be explained
scientifically rather than as an “act of god”.
7. • A widely held faith in scientifically based
progress. An associated view has been that the
more we trust in science and technological
progress, the better our society will be.
8. • Five Key features of the post-modern society
• Globalisation
• The Media
• A world in Fragments (due to Dynamism: Rapid
social change)
• Consumer society: Individual freedom to
choose one’s lifestyle
• Cultural diversity and hybridity
9. • Globalisation
• The increasing connectedness between
societies across the globe. Globalisation means
there are more flows of information and ideas,
money, and people moving across national
boundaries.
10. • The increasing importance of the mass media
• The post-modern era has witnessed a huge expansion in media technology.
The rise of digital media, especially the internet, has lead to a massive and
unprecedented increase in the number of people using the media; a huge
increase in the diversity of media products both factual and fictional; an
increase in the number of people creating their own music, videos, profile
sites and uploading them for public consumption, greater interactivity,
more flexibility. All of this results in much more complex patterns of media
usage, more picking and mixing
• One consequence of this is that our society has an increased reliance on
the media to tell us what is going on in the world. Some sociologists argue
that the media creates something called ‘hyper reality’ where what we see
in the media is different yet more real than reality. Jean Baudrillard argues
that the media coverage of war for example is different to reality, yet is the
only reality most of us know.
• New networks also emerge through the use of media, most obviously
through profile sites such as Facebook. One consequence of this is the
breakdown of local communities, as people increasingly network online in
the privacy of their own homes, and don’t communicate with their next
door neighbours.
11. • A world in fragments
• In post-modern society, the pace of change is
much more rapid than in modern society.
Post-modern society is thus more dynamic,
more fluid if you like. Post-modern society
lacks any coherent, or stable social structure.
12. • The Consumer society
• According to post-modernists one Fundamental difference between
the post-modern society and modern society is that our society is
consumer oriented, rather than work oriented. This means that
consuming things, and leisure activities are more important today
than work. The image of the post-modern society is thus one of a
shopping mall, rather than a factory.
• Post modernists argue that we live in a ‘Pick and mix’ society.
Individuals today are free to pick their lifestyle and life course, from
a wider range of options than ever before, just as if they were
picking and choosing products in a super market! Importantly, post
modernists argue that individuals are much less shaped by their
class, gender and ethnic backgrounds today. Women, for example,
are not expected to become housewives and mothers, just because
they are women and work is much less gendered than it used to be.
Society is no longer divided along class lines, or gender lines, or even
ethnic lines. Being born working class, being born a woman, or being
born black, does not, according to post-modernists, pre-determine
one’s future, or shape one’s consciousness (identity) as it did in
modernity (and the extent to which it did was often exaggerated by
the classical sociologists).
15. • Cultural diversity and hybridity
• The ever increasing pace of globalisation has lead to an increase in
cultural diversity and ‘hybridity’, which refers to the mixing of
different cultural traditions. If we compare society today to that of
100 or even 50 years ago we see a bewildering increase in the
diversity of social and cultural forms. Some of the more obvious
examples include:
• Goods and services: A simple trip to the supermarket or shopping
mall reveals a huge range of products one can buy, and the same is
true of services.
• Fashion and Music: Once again, one can spend several hours in a
week simply choosing what to buy or wear, or sorting MP3s on
one’s MP3 player (once you’ve chosen one of those course!)
• Pretty much every other sphere of life is more diverse than it was 50
years ago: Education, work, family life…..
16. • Michel Foucault
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJTeNT
ZtGU
• Jacques Derrida
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0tnHr2
dqTs
17. • Since the 1960’s art exists in an ‘expanded
field’. It is an ‘open work’. It is hard to
define what it is. The boundaries between
art and architecture, art and landscape are
ambiguous.
18. • Joseph Beuys
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2VH8LzB6AM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKutq11biOg
