Mass Media - Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Post modernists argue that UK society has undergone fundamental changes in recent decades - now living in postmodern age. Service industries concerned with the processing and transmission of information and knowledge and servicing consumption. Mass media, government, finance and retail have become more important than the factory production of manufactured goods.

Jean Baudrillard - Media Saturation

• The rapid expansion in media technologies in recent decades had led to post modern societies becoming media saturated
• As a result the popular culture they generate now shape our identities and lifestyles much more than traditional influences like the family.
• The media has also changed and shaped our consumption patterns by making us aware of the diversity of choices available in the post modern world

Hyperreality and Simulacra
Media images now dominate and distort the way we see the world. Eg Media images replace reality. TV news coverage of war eliminates blood and suffering offering a sanitised view of events.
Baudrillard calls the distorted view of the world hyperreality and the artificial images reproduced across the world, he calls Simulacra

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