1.

The emergence of postmodernism

2.Consumerism and media-saturation

Consumerism
✓ an economic and social ideology and order that encourages consumption or acquisition of
goods/services in a never-ending cycle

✓ purchasing and consumption of goods and services in excess of a person’s basic needs

2. Model innovation

Manufacturers needed to continually expand production so as to increase

their profits.

Overproduction could and should be solved by increasing consumption so that

economic growth could continue.

Employers were also afraid of such a future because of its potential to

undermine the work ethic and encourage degeneracy amongst workers who
were unable to make proper use of their time.

Increasing production and consumption guaranteed the ongoing centrality of wor

Media Saturation

✓ view of the world which is created and defined by the mass media
✓ media images which appear to reflect reality but have no real basis in the real world
✓ media gave society a consumerist identity and has made consumption more important than
class identity

Example provide the postmodernist model of audience effects

 Postmodernism has links with some long-standing arguments about how the scale and
effects of consumerism and media saturation have been vital aspects of the modern
development of industrial, capitalist societies.
Example: the economic needs of capitalism have shifted from production to consumption.
This suggests that the major need of capitalist societies was to establish their conditions of
production such as:

 machines and factories for the manufacturing of goods had to be built and continually
updated
 heavy industries concerned with basic materials had to be fostered;
  infrastructure of a capitalist economy had to be laid down;
 workforce had to be taught the ‘work ethic’
All this meant that consumption had to be sacrificed to the needs of production.
“ the need for people to consume has become as important than the need for people to
produce”
4. Hence, the growth of consumer credit, the expansion of agencies such as advertising,
marketing, design and public relations, encouraging people to consume, and the emergence of
a postmodern popular culture which celebrates consumerism, hedonism and style.
the media obviously become more important.

 The rise of modern mass communications, and the associated proliferation of popular
media culture, become central to the explanatory framework of postmodern theory.

 New middle-class occupations

Consumerism and media-saturation have been conceived of as over-abstract processes, but
they can be given some social grounding if changes in the class and occupational structures are
taken into consideration.
the increasing importance of consumption and the media in modern societies has given
rise to new occupations to encourage people to consume more frequently with a greater
number and variety of commodities.
‘postmodern’ occupations have emerged which function to develop and promote
postmodern popular culture.
Consumerism has also played a major role in legitimating a social system which
rewards businessmen and top corporate executives with incomes many times
those of ordinary workers.

The consumer society gives ordinary workers some access to the good life. 

 Mass media jobs

Here's information on writing and editing jobs.

 Editor
 Managing Editor
 Assistant Editor
 Technical Writer
 Biographer
 Content Manager
 Copy Writer
 Communication Specialist
 Digital Media Specialist
 Social Media Specialist
journalism
 Broadcaster
  Broadcast News Analyst
 Broadcast Engineering Technician
 Sound Engineering Technician
 Journalist
 News Analyst
 Reporter
 Announcer
 Television Announcer
Producing and the Production Team
runners, researchers, managers, and more.

 Producer
 Project Manager
 Technical Producer
 Animator
 Photographer
 Videographer
 Camera Operator
 Proofreader
 Radio Operator
 Audio and Video Equipment Technician

Advertising / Marketing
this list of jobs in advertising.
 Account Executive
 Creative Director
 Graphic Artist
 Graphic Designer
 Marketers
 Media Product Development Manager
 Merchandising Manager
 Multimedia Specialist
 Promotions Specialist
 Public Relations Specialist
E-Commerce / Communications Technologies
 Electronic Data Interchange Specialist
 Graphical User Interface Programmer
 Graphic/Web Designer
 Communication Equipment Operator
 Network Engineer
 Software Engineer
 Telecommunications Technician
 Web Content Executive
 Web Customer Support Specialist
 Web Systems Director
Marketing and Advertising jobs
Advertisers sought to redefine people’s needs, encourage their wants and offer
solutions to them via goods produced by corporations rather than allowing people to
identify and solve their own problems, or to look to each other for solutions

People in marketing positions help companies form and publicize an image, sell products, and
run promotions on various media platforms. Marketing roles are required across nearly all
industries: anyone selling widgets requires marketing support, but so too do hospitals, schools,
publishing companies, non-profit organizations, celebrities, and so on.

Advertising and promotions are typically the most expensive element of a

comprehensive marketing strategy, requiring the combined creative skills of graphic
designers, writers, art directors, and media specialists. 
 Advertising Director
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 Creative Marketing Assistant
 Advertising Intern
 Advertising Coordinator
 Advertising Assistant
 Marketing Assistant
 Assistant Media Buyer

3 Roles of these
Growing importance of occupations associated with the definition and selling of notions of
psychological and personal fulfilment and growth.
  These new middle-class occupations are crucial to the development of a postmodern
popular culture.
 All these occupations are said to be among the most important in determining the
taste patterns for the rest of the society.
 They exert an important influence over other people’s life-styles and values or
ideologies (while expressing their own as well).
 They entail being conversant with the media and popular culture, both of which have
to be used and manipulated in order for their appropriate occupational work to be
carried out.
 The nature of the work they carry out and the need to distinguish themselves as a
status group from others in the hierarchy of taste both help their elaboration of a
postmodern ideology and lifestyle.

The cultural ideologies and identities of these occupational groups are becoming increasingly
postmodern.
Their quest for cultural power leads them towards postmodernism and away from the cultures of
other classes
9 The erosion of identity
The erosion of secure collective identities has led to the increasing fragmentation of
personal identities.
The gradual disappearance of traditional and highly valued frames of reference in terms of
which people could define themselves and their place in society, and so feel relatively
secure in their personal and collective identities.
These traditional sources of identity are said to be in decline as a result of tendencies in
modern capitalism such as increasingly rapid and wide-scale rates of social change.
10. Examples
For example, Economic globalization, the tendency for investment, production, marketing and
distribution to take place on an international basis above and beyond the nation state or the
local community, is seen as an important reason for the gradual erosion of these traditional
sources of identity.
11. Conc
Transnational economic processes erode the significance of local and national industries and
the occupational, communal and familial identities they could once sustain.
Why?

 no equivalent and workable forms emerge which can take the place of traditional
sources of identity.
 No new institutions or beliefs arise to give people a secure and coherent sense of
themselves
Consumerism by its very nature is seen to foster a self-centred individualism which disrupts the
possibilities for solid and stable identities.
Popular media has similar effects because it is both individualistic and universal.

12 The limits of postmodernism

The mass media are important, but not that important.
The media are all important sometimes seems to be merely an ideology which expresses the
interests of media professionals.
Popular media culture regulates consumption rests upon unsubstantiated assumptions about
people’s behaviour as consumers.
Equally, it fails to recognise how useful the commodities which people buy are for them, and
neglects the fact that the ability to consume is restricted by economic and cultural inequalities.
Of course, if reality has really ‘imploded’ into the media, how would we know it has happened?

 We could only rely on the media to tell us that it had, but why should we trust them?
Another major difficulty with postmodernism lies in its assumption that metanarratives are in
decline.
It is apparent that developments in technology and communications have had significant
effects on the speed with which information, images and people can be transported around
the world.
As a result, the sense that people now have of time and space must have changed when
compared with previous generations.

Postmodernist claims about the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture
have a degree of plausibility, particularly since they seem to relate to the practices and
ideologies of certain occupational groups.

 First, if art and popular culture can still be distinguished from each other, then how far
can the breakdown be said to have gone?
 Second, postmodern culture has been distinguished from other types of culture such as
pre-modern and modern.
 Third, the postmodern popular culture produced by certain occupational groups within
the cultural industries is clearly not just concerned with a celebratory populism or a
know-nothing relativism.
 Last, it can be argued that most people do discriminate in their cultural consumption and
appreciation, even if they do not do so in order to conform with the demands of the
hierarchy of art and mass culture, or of postmodernism.