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.