Postmodernity

Postmodernity is a social and political condition, distinct from modernity, closely related to postmodernism. For social, political, technological, and economic determinists, it is a major cause of the emergence of postmodernism and postmodern culture. For others, it is a mode of society which go hand in hand with postmodernism. Postmodernity may be a reason for some to choose postmodernism as a way of life, epistemological, ethical, or aesthetic position.

Postmodernism is an epistemological, aesthetic, ethical, and/or cultural attitude which is said to be distinctive from that of modern society.

Postmodernity can be said to focus on the conditions of life variously described as consumerism or late capitalism: namely a context where manufacturing, distribution and dissemination have become exceptionally inexpensive, but social connection and community have become more expensive. Artefacts of postmodernity include the dominance of television and popular culture, the wide accessibility of information and mass and telecommunications. Postmodernity also exhibits a greater resistance to making sacrifices in the name of progress, including such features as environmentalism and the growing importance of the anti-war movement. Postmodernity in the industrialised core is marked by increasing focus on civil rights and equal opportunity, as seen by such movements as feminism and multi-culturalism.

Postmodernity can be said to have gone through two relatively distinct phases: the first phase beginning in the 1950's and running through the end of the Cold War, where analog dissemination of information produced sharp limits on the width of channels, and encouraged a few authoritative media channels, and the second beginning with the explosion of cable television, internetworking and the end of the Cold War.

The first phase of postmodernity overlaps the end of modernity and is regarded by many as being part of the modern period (see lumpers/splitters, periodization). In this period there was the rise of television as the primary news source, the decreasing importance of manufacturing in the economies of Western Europe and the United States, the increase of trade volumes within the developed core. In 1967-1969 a crucial cultural explosion took place within the developed world as the baby boom generation, which had grown up with postmodernity as their fundamental experience of society, demanded entrance into the political, cultural and educational power structure. A series of demonstrations and acts of rebellion - from cultural, through violent acts of terrorism - represented the opposition of the young to the policies and perspectives of the previous age. Central to this was opposition to the Algerian War and the Vietnam War, and to laws which overtly discriminated against women, and restricted access to divorce. The era was marked by an upswing in visible use of marijuana and hallucinogens and the emergence of pop cultural styles of music and drama, including rock music. The ubiquity of stereo, television and radio helped make these changes visible to the broader cultural context.

The second phase of postmodernity is visible by the increasing power of digital means of communication, including fax machines, modems, cable, and eventually high speed internet. This lead to the creation of the new economy, whose supporters argued that the dramatic fall in information costs would alter society fundamentally. The simplest demarcation point is the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the liberalisation of China. For a period of time it was believed that this change ended the need for an overarching social order, which was called "The End of History" by Francis Fukuyama. However, such predictions, in light of subsequent events, seem extremely naive. Internetworking in particular has altered the condition of postmodernity dramatically: digital production of information allows individuals to manipulate virtually every aspect of the media environment, from the source code of their computers, to the wikipedia project itself. This condition of digitality has brought producers of content in conflict with consumers over intellectual capital and intellectual property.

References

• Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was a French philosopher and literary theorist well-known for his embracing of postmodernism after the late 1970s. He published "La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir" (The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge) (1979)

• Ihab Hassan, From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/Global Context (2000), text online. (http://www.ihabhassan.com/postmodernism_to_postmodernity.htm)

Studies in postmodernity

• European Graduate School - Media and Communication Studies Program (http://www.egs.edu/)
• MIT Comparative Media Studies (http://web.mit.edu/cms/)
• New School University - Media Studies Program (http://www.newschool.edu/)
• University of Toronto - McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology (http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/)