1. Section A: Postmodernism
EXAM INFO
Title of exam
Marks
Requirements
Media platforms
Styles of questions
Past paper questions
2. Official title of exam
• The A2 exam is titled Critical Perspectives in Media
3. Marks?
• How many marks?
• Length of exam?
50 marks
1 hr (part of 2 hour exam)
It is marked by EAA, EX, T (same as other exams)
4. Requirements (important bits)
•
Candidates must, in advance of the examination and, through specific case studies, texts, debates
and research of the candidates’ choice, prepare to demonstrate understanding of the contemporary
issue.
•
This understanding must combine knowledge of at least two media and a range of
texts, industries, audiences and debates,
•
The assessment of the response will be generic, allowing for the broadest possible range of
responses within the topic area chosen.
•
Each topic is accompanied by four prompt questions, and candidates must be prepared to answer
an exam question that relates to one or more of these four prompts.
•
There should be emphasis on the historical, the contemporary and the future in relation to the
chosen topic, with most attention on the present.
•
Centres are thus advised to ensure that study materials for this unit are up to date and relevant.
5. Required platforms to study
• How post-modern media relate to genre and narrative across two
media,
–
–
–
–
–
–
computer / video games and new forms of representation
post-modern cinema
interactive media
reality TV
music video
Advertising
Also study…….
– post-modern audience theories
– aspects of globalisation
– parody and pastiche in media texts or a range of other applications of
post-modern media theory
6. Styles of questions
•
Definitions of postmodernism (in relation to media products and media audiences).
•
What are the different versions of post-modernism (historical period, style, theoretical approach)?
•
The difference between postmodern media and traditional media.
•
What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media as post-modern?
•
In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?
•
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?
•
How do post-modern media texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?
•
Debates about postmodernism and whether it is really a useful theory or not.
•
Examples of media products which you think can be, or have been defined as postmodern, and the reasons for
them being analysed in this way.
7. Essay Question Checklist
•
•
•
•
Definition (elements)
Different versions
Comparison between pomo/traditional
How pomo texts challenge traditional text reader relations
and concept of representation
• How audiences & industries operate differently in pomo world
• Impact on audience
• Arguments for/against (debates) – useful theory?
You will have choice of 2 questions, answer 1
8. Past paper Questions
DATE
EXAM QUESTION
Jan 10
What is meant by ‘postmodern media’?
Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial.
June 10
Why are some media products described as ‘postmodern’?
“Postmodern media blur the boundary between reality and representation”. Discuss this idea with
reference to media texts you have studied.
Jan 11
Explain why certain kinds of media can be defined as postmodern.
Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.
June 11
How do postmodern media differ from other media?
How far do you accept the idea of postmodernism?
Jan 12
“Postmodern media manipulate time and space.” To what extend does this definition apply to texts
you have studied?
Define postmodern media with examples.
June 12
Assess the arguments for and against postmodernism, in relation to media examples.
“Postmodern media break the rules of representation.” Discuss.
Jan 13
“All contemporary media is postmodern.” Discuss this statement in relation to examples you have
studied.
Evaluate theories of postmodernism in relation to media.
June 13
9. Read first pages in e-book
• The textbook for media is now available online as an e-book. You
can access it at home or on your iPad when you get it.
•
•
•
•
•
Go to website:
url: http://my.dynamic-learning.co.uk/Default.aspx?cid=21302
Centre ID: 21302
Username: 21302hb
Password: erteach
•
Click on 'Dynamic E-book' (the A2 one is 2nd one in with orange on
cover) and then interactive pages......
•
Postmodernism = (start page 136)
13. •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pomo = media saturated world
Constantly immersed in media…work, home, on the go,
Distinction of reality and media representation becomes blurred
No sense of difference between real things/experiences and
images/simulations of them
Media reality = new reality
Representation gets ‘remixed/jumbled’ by intertexuality
(pastiche/parody)
These texts make no attempt to claim they are ‘real’
Rejection that any text is ‘better’ than another
Anything can be art and reach anyone
Distinction between media and reality has collapsed; our reality is a
reality determined by images and representations (state of
simulcrum)
– Images refer to eachother and represent eachother as reality RATHER
than an pure reality that exists before the image (this is hyperreality)
– They seek not to represent reality but media reality
14. 2 key pomo thinkers:
Jean Francois Lytord, Jean Baurillard
• Both French
• Both dead
• Idea of truth should be deconstructed so we can
challenge dominant ideas that people claim as the truth
(which Lyotard calls ‘grand narratives’)
• In pomo world, media texts attempt to remove the
illusion of stories and because they attempt to challenge
truth/reality, these texts are competing for truth/reality
15. •
Baurillard said:
– “Truth is what we should rid ourselves of as fast as possible and pass it on to somebody else.
As with illnesses, it’s the only way to be cured of it. He who hangs onto the truth has lost.”
•
Many people find this offensive, and think it is only people who are
privileged, educated, from big democratic nations who have this ‘playful stance’ on
the truth
– Compared with people from Iraq, Zimbabae, Tibet who cannot have have such a light-hearted
stance on truth as they face serious issues of truth everyday such as human rights/justice
•
•
•
•
Baurillard is not deny these political realities but establishing a philosophical
stance
Postmodernists cannot wish to remove one version of truth and replace it with
another a ‘correct’ one; but view them with suspicion.
Religious people believe in textual wisdom (i.e. bible) and sacred moral principles
……therefore it would make it hard to someone to dismiss these ‘grand narratives’
(realities) and replacing/merge them with postmodernism
Another argument against postmodernism (because of people’s discomfort with
‘anti-truth’ which is about relativism and has the notion of ‘anything goes’)
•
•
Could lead to moral chaos
Ethical anarchy
– If truth is absent, how do we deal with matters of justice?
16. • No longer a distinction between reality and a representing
image (simulacrum)
• Baurillard introducing idea of hyperreality
– Disneyland:
• real in physical space (actual buildings/structures)
• Also fictional and representational (fantasy characters and stories)
• Line between these is blurred
• Semiotics:
– Signs = ideas/people/places
– For Baurillard, only surface meaning, no longer anything original
to represent, sign is meaning
• Society made wholly of simulacra (simulations of reality
which replace ‘pure reality’
– Pure reality is replaced by the hypereal (boundary between
reality/imaginary is eroded)
• Baurillard’s work is an attempt to expose this ‘open secret’
of how we live and make sense of the world
