Baudrillard & Postmodernism

Modernism as a movement grew from the ruins of WW1 and WW2 and a hope for a better future.
Modernism was about faith and optimism:

•  Faith in people/institutions/religion/the law/family, etc; faith that things will get better, such as careers, economic status, romance. 
• Through education, social class could be a thing of the past. The Modern era is meritocracy (we succeed through earning our way, not because of who we know or to whom we are related.)
• Faith in new technology and industry - machinery and technology made life easier, less laborious and information was at our fingertips.
• Faith in opportunities that Globalisation offered previously gated countries/communities to become interconnected: the EU was a product of Modernism.

Baudrillard's Theory of Post-Modernism

1. The reality = life itself
2. The image masks a basic reality = Instagram users take pictures of their day-to-day activities.
3. The image masks an absence of reality = Instagram users are manufacturing a version of their lives, creating a simulacrum (imitation) of reality, often promoting products and managed by a third party.
4. The image replaces reality to from a HYPEREALITY = a copy of a copy/representation.

Internet memes are a PRIME example of postmodernism at work in out everyday media consciousness:

• Memes  make observations about real life and, as such, present a manufactured image of our reality.
• Memes parody, pastiche or pay homage to existing media products such as TV dramas, musicians, films, games, films, etc.
• Memes are often multi-layered in their humour, often requiring understanding of other memes to fully appreciate the meaning.
• Memes often seek to deconstruct our life and ways of thinking. Some memes actively discredit 'substantial' ways of thinking about our reality, sometimes in a light-hearted way but other times in an aggressive and disruptive way. For example, memes about Greta Thunberg which demerit her credibility as a climate change activist.

Simulacrum and hyperreality in TV Drama

Baudrillard argued that postmodern society is organised around 'simulation' - the play of images and signs. Differences of gender, class, politics and culture are dissolving in a world of simulation in which individuals construct their identities.

The new world of hyperreality consists of simulations that no longer have to refer to anything real, but to one another.

Any media product adds to hyperreality, so to this extent it is not really significant what the product contains.

Drawbacks: this is a high level theory - doesn't relate specifically to long-form TV Dramas, and the world is ever-changing.

Plurality and Intertextuality

Postmodernism allows for cognitive dissonance - the ability to hold two contrasting beliefs or understandings.

Postmodernism allows for playfulness, parody and self-referentialism.

Types of Postmodernism

• Parody - a comical imitation, a simplification of core elements of a genre/text, for example, the films Scary Movie includes ideas from Scream.
• Bricolage - borrowing from the 'debris' of other texts to create something new.
• Intertextuality - meaning is given to a text by it referencing, knowingly, other texts.
• Homage/pastiche - a light-hearted, tongue in cheek imitation of another's style. Different to parody as it is usually good-natured and respectful.