Morley (1996) attempts to settle debates over what post-modernism is and what it might mean for critical analysis. He is primarily interested in problematizing major claims about post-modernism.
1. Our current focus on post-modernism may be about anxiety. If modernism has been characterized largely by imperialism, then postmodernism may signal a shift away from Western domination. Furthermore, there are economic aspects to this uneasiness. Changes in government and industrial structure signal a move away from welfare politics and into decentralization and deregulation.
2. Postmodernism is often discussed in terms that make it seem more like anti-modernism. In some instances, claims of postmodernism negate themselves by being too fervently against modernism and rationality. For example, Morley (1996) mocks the idea of definitively saying we can't know anything for certain. When such a statement is made definitively, it undoes itself.
3. Media is involved in the conception of the postmodern because our culture is increasingly saturated with media. Morley (1996) notes that many of the fears about postmodern media seem exaggerated. Morley (1996) is particularly critical of the idea that our world is made up only of spectacles with no meaning behind them and the argument that we accept information so passively as to mitigate its possible propaganda effects.
Morley (1996) does note a reversal in some forms of media, though. He is particularly (though briefly) interested in the way media has tended to dictate real events rather than simply communicating them. Reagan's bombing of Libya, for example, was scheduled around television news schedules rather than military timing.
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