Postmodernism Theory

Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media text is of any greater value than another. Postmodernism states that anything can be art and that anything deserves to reach an audience, and culture ‘eats itself’ as there is no longer anything new to produce and distribute, this means that there is nothing new as of yet so all media texts released are re-hashes of each other.

The distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we now live in a ‘reality’ defined by images and representations in a state of simulacrum (Google’s definition: “An image or representation of someone or something”). Images refer to each other and represent each other as reality rather than some ‘pure’ reality that exists before the image represents it, this is the state of hyper-reality (Google’s definition: “In semiotics and postmodernism, hyper-reality is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.”)

Postmodernism is also said to reflect modern society’s feelings of alienation, insecurity and uncertainties concerning identity, progress, history and truth. Artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson and David Bowie are all cited as examples of postmodernism in the ways in which they have created or re-created different identities for themselves. 


We usually think of the media as being in-between us and reality, hence the word ‘media’ and the idea of ‘mediation’.

Postmodernists claim that in a media-saturated world, where we are constantly immersed in media; on the move, at work or at home, the distinction between reality and the media representation of it becomes blurred or even entirely invisible to us. In other words, we no longer have any sense of the difference between real things and images of them, or real experiences and simulations of them. Media reality is now the new reality.