At this point more a recognition of need than a reality
Built on an invented distinction
"Modernism" versus "Postmodernism"
and an ideological sensibility
Control of media privileges
Consumption of media subjugates or oppresses
Sort of a generalized notion of what Innis discusses
in a world where new media are a constant rather than an occasional reality
A presumption that signs are an instrument of power across media and content
We live in a the midst of a battle over signs and meaning in which many groups try to gain power by appropriating signs to their ends
Some vocabulary
Modernism
cast as a straw man against which postmodernism is constructed
but open to variant ideological interpretation
a heroic period of experimentation
a period of profound elitism
either way, generally viewed as a move from realistic depiction to abstract and highly symbolic depiction
that foregrounds language and technique
across many media (art, music, film, architecture)
Postmodernism
a reaction to modernism
Semiotics of excess
when we overuse symbols
we devalue them
Ironic articulation of the "already said" (Eco)
rearticulation and appropriation of signs
Intertextual references
Excessive cross referencing of things already known
Hyperconsciousness
the text as a hyperaware cultural artifact
realized, in many ways, in web cross referencing
but increasingly visible in a broad array of intertextual references
Hyperconsious irony
self-conscious self-referencing within a text
both
highlights text as social construction
and devalues the image
Subjectivity free of subjugation
we are neither free agents
nor hypodermically controlled robots
so long as we are aware of media manipulations
we can create our own identity, diversified by our diverse media experiences
Radical eclecticism
Juxtaposition of "incompatible" styles, materials, and conventions
Television is a site of multiple intersecting conflicting conventions.
This is often the mode of postmodern content creation
"Late" capitalism
the endless creation of new markets
by appropriating signs to construct visions of success and happiness
and sell products by making consumption the scene of happiness
Jean Baudrilliard and Postmodern Criticism
Is fascinated and repulsed by American culture
and has written about it: America and Cool Memories
good at cultural sound bites:
the whole art of politics today is to stir up popular indifference.
The compact disc. It doesn't wear out, even if you use it. Terrifying. It's as though you'd never used it ... If things don't get old anymore, that th's because it's you who are dead.
Since the media always make you out to say the opposite of what you say, you should have the courage always to say the opposite of what you think.
Espouses a consumerism based on recognition of the hyperreal
Human needs, in today's world, are driven by the media
accumulation of goods
a consumption society
our media ensure that consumption does not equal satisfaction
We substitute the false for the real in creating the hyperreal
Examples:
Disneyland
Mouthwash
The Television Family
The Nuclear Family
Neighborhoods that are absent of the old, the handicapped, and the poor.
Wars that do not have the characteristics of war.
Let the media consumer beware.
Derrida
I wasn't a fan of Derrida's work when I first encountered it
I found the language pedantic and unnecessarily difficult
That was a problem, because I kept encountering his legacy in the references of others
That legacy proved persistently valuable.
An analyst/theoretician in the tradition of Plato
Asking questions and talking about the possibilities
Taking on basic questions and essential theoretical vocabulary
But with a big difference:
he profoundly believed
that one could not observe with precision
and not change that which was observed
This assertion is fundamental to the "false assumptions" he associates with traditional ways of reading
that language is capable of expressing ideas without changing them
that writing is secondary to speech
that the author of a text is the source of its meaning
Derrida moves literary analysis in directions that others are moving in within other fields
Quantum mechanics had already long asserted that the act of observing changes in the physical world of quantum particles has an effect on what which is observed
McLuhan and Ong were writing already asserting, with their notions of secondary orality, that writing had become primary and speech secondary
Phenomenology and other traditions already asserted that meaning resides in the consumer of texts rather than the creator of texts
Godel had already observed that, at least within mathematics, it was not possible to create a theoretical system that that was entirely internally consistent
Semiotics had already noticed that signs and texts had multiple layers of meaning, not all of which could be fully defined within the context of a dictionary
These observations provide an empirical background to post-modern thought
Derrida catches, in some sense, an emerging Gestault of our time and asks a fundamental question raised in the intersection of these ideas:
"What does it mean to "mean"
Hence his method, "Deconstruction", which attempts to take texts apart and understand them from a variety of perspectives
"Con"-text: A text is not just a collection of words. It is a system that creates meaning in the intersection of that collection. It is both a collection of meanings and a context that reshapes those meanings.
history: every text comes from somewhere, but many of the sources associated with a texts are forgotten, repressed, marginalized or legitimized. In this sense a text is like a person. We forget most of what we learn when we are young. Texts forget too.
linkage: every texts is, in some sense, "hyperlinked" to a whole constellation of other texts
radical reader-oriented criticism: meaning does not reside in the creator of texts. It resides in the consumer. The creator works to shape the meanings that a consumer will take away from the text, but the text takes on its own life, in the hands of consumers, as soon as it leaves the authors hands.
Deconstruction seeks to give voice to each of these perspectives
The result is a "theory of relativity" for literature that asserts that a text's meanings emerge from and evolve within several sources
The observers or consumers of texts
The history of the text, especially in prior texts
The linkages to and from the text
The context created by the text
But the bottom line of his observations is simple
When we push too hard on the meaning of things, meaning falls apart
But when we don't we are deluding ourselves with a false sense of a consistency that isn't really there
The legacy of Derrida's observation's is measurable and substantial
Over 500 dissertations that treat his work as a primary subject
Citations in over 14,000 articles
But the true measure of Derrida remains to be seen
For most of his output, writing really has been secondary to orality
Interviews, in which a favored graduate student got to write a book with Derrida's name on it
Those interviews are highly scattered in their content
For me, the valuable nuggets have been observations about "time" that have been scattered across a number of volumes.
But his observations touch on many core theoretical issues associated with the study of media and media content
Almost all of the citations I've seen for Derrida involve these scattered nuggets
Which raises questions about his ultimate legacy
Will Derrida be better known for
enunciation of a set of problematic assumptions which many continue to make
outlining a method - Deconstruction - that allows us to get inside those assumptions
as a pedantic and difficult to understand writer
or as someone who comments broadly, but usefully, on some basic issues of literary criticism in scattered dialogues
Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page
were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger,
and should be cited accordingly. For example (APA): Foulger, D. and other
participants. (May 5, 2010). Critical Analysis S2010 S13. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from
http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?CriticalAnalysisS2010S13.
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