ABSTRACT

What is postmodernism? 211

Culture and society 211

An emphasis on style at the expense of substance 212

Art and popular culture 213

Confusions over time and space 214

The decline of metanarratives 215

Contemporary popular culture and postmodernism 216

Architecture 216

Cinema 217

Television 219

Advertising 220

Pop music 221

The emergence of postmodernism 223

Consumerism and media-saturation 223

New middle-class occupations 225

The erosion of identity 226

The limits of postmodernism 227

Some recent theoretical developments 233

Discourse and popular culture 233

The ‘dialogical’ approach to popular culture 237

Cultural populism 240

THIS CHAPTER WILL consider the postmodernist analysis of contemporary popular culture. Like the preceding chapters, it will assess critically the claims it makes. However, unlike them it will be even more concerned with the empirical arguments of postmodernism. One reason for this is that postmodern theory and post-structuralism, its theoretical and philosophical foundation, are relatively recent developments, and still less familiar than the other theories discussed: for example, there are few sources which present clear and readable accounts of postmodern theory. Compounding this problem, much of the debate about postmodernism has been too vague, abstract and difficult to understand. Compared with this theoretical output, relatively little has been said about postmodernism as an empirical or historical phenomenon.