Baudrillards's Postmodernism Theory

Baudrillards's Postmodernism Theory

Postmodernism 

• Irony- When something happens that you wouldn't expect to happen
• Parody or Homage- Homage = paying respects to a genre, style, person or product. References to similar genres, for example an actor in a sci-fi genre is in a new TV sci-fi genre. Parody = making fun of a genre or style, product or person. 
• Bricolage = sampling and using older media products in your own. 
• Inter-textual references- A producer or director uses a reference either subtle or direct to another media product. 
• Fragmented narrative-  A narrative is broken up into chunks and mixed around. Their might be flash backs, flash forwards, the narrative is a mixed up order,
• Self reflexivity- characters in the show etc are aware they are in a media product, they might talk to us breaking the fourth wall. Its hard to spot in media products. They might talk to other characters about being in the show.
• Common themes- What if, the future, technology, human existence. 
• Loss of reality- more artifice, less realism- Lacking verisimilitude = amount of realism (it sounds like very similar too, real life). It lacks realism, making things surreal. 
•  Postmodernism tends to be something from the last few decades. 

Theory

• reality vs artificial reality. 

Baudrillard says what we used to have in the media and all around us was reality (an actual orange), we used to see real people in the media, we used to see real locations and real stories and he thinks that what has happened is that we have left that reality behind, loss of reality, and what we are now in is a world of artificial realities.

Baudrillard reckons that what happens is that society starts evolving, media products get made and over the last few decades what we have gone from is the reality (of the orange) then we had heightened reality (freshly squeezed orange juice), more intense than the original reality but it still links (because it is still orange in the juice), we have taken are media products and adapted them slightly. Then we come to are artificial copies = simulacra (Fanta only made with 4% real fruit) there us hardly any link to the actual reality (the orange).

We are left with a simulacrum, which tries to copy the reality (it has an orange on the label, it is similar in colour and says its orange on the label but it isn't the reality of an actual orange).

We have a simulacra, a copy of reality that is so artificial its not really linked to reality at all. Baudrillard says we are surrounded by simulacra of media products, artificial copies. Simulacra become hard to tell apart from reality = hyper reality. It's so hard to tell the difference between them because they are packaged in the same way, they look the same, they are sometimes enjoyed more than the reality. It tries to look like reality but it isn't at all. 

Is it truth or is it like Baudrillard suggests a cleverly constructed glossed packaged version of something made to look like reality but which the audience can't tell the difference between this and reality or actually they prefer simulacra to real life.

Baudrillard thinks that we can no longer tell the difference between the reality and the hyper reality state, the simulacra and the reality of the media product.

Are the personas we see in media products, what people think the real versions of them selves, or are they very cleverly crafted simulacra that bears very little resemblance to the real artist in real life but the audience has come to accept the simulacra as being real and that who we want to interact with online and on twitter and that who we want to see in their media products.