Postmodernism

Dominic Strinati - "Fetishised Hyperreality" where the simulation has lost all connection or objective with reality. 

"Postmodernism tries to come to terms with and understand a media-saturated society. The mass media, for example, were once thought of as holding up a mirror to, and thereby reflecting, a wider social reality. Now that reality is only definable in terms of surface reflection of the mirror." - meaning society has become subsumed within the mass media, the term implies that there is a reality outside the surface simulation of the media which can be distored. This is the issue that postmodernist point out - how can we tell what is right if we no longer know what is real?

"Postmodernism is sceptical of any absolute, universal and all-embracing claim to knowledge and argues that theories or doctrines which make such claims are increasingly open to criticism, contestation and doubt." (Strinati) This links to Jean-Francois Lyotard's theory of Micro-Narratives where narratives are unpredictable which can often leave the audience open to interpret the reasoning or purpose of the text.

"Media images encourage superficiality rather than substance, cynicism rather than belief, the thirst for constant change rather than security of stable traditions, the desires of the moment rather than the truths of history." - meaning postmodern TV & film have become dominated by surface style and imagery rather than deeper underlying themes, which might relate to the "realities" of society.

Carla Kaplan (1987) identifies that music videos abandon narrative structure, they make no attempt to tell a story instead the power of a music video lies in the collage of images mixed with music - there is no deeper meaning or purpose it.

Frederic Jameson agrees with this calling it "Depthlessness" of contemporary cultural production - sees it as superficial cutting & pasting of ready-made images and styles which are abstracted from their true origins and reused in meaningless new combinations in the trivial commercialized space created by mass culture which will wear out with time. "The writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds... only a limited number of combinations are possible, the most unique ones have been thought of already."

Criticisms Of Postmodernism

1. Postmodernism undercuts the entire enterprise of education and truth.
2. To the extend that postmodernism indicts truth and value, postmodernism undercuts itself and whatever purposes and values it attempts to secure (i.e. less oppression, less violence, etc..)
3. Postmodernism is a poor analytic tool.  Whatever one gains with post-modernism, you take away from modernity.  For instance, turning all governments including democracies into equal parts tyranny doesn't exactly help fight for freedom or less oppression.  In addition, the norm to respect human dignity is different than the norm to take off your coat if you are going in doors--there are fundamentally different.  While I think geneaology might be able to handle this difference--the other tools fight against this.
4. Postmodernism undercuts rights protections (ie it would roll back the clock on the 60s reforms).  Progressive reforms & anything involving government protection of individual and groups would likewise die.
5. Postmodern focus on language trades-off with real world focus on actual oppression (not just the violence of language, but real violence).  You can spend too much time on issues of language or the essentialism of labels and forget to make the world a better place.
6. Postmodernism is too idealistic.  We as humans need structure (ie laws and guiding mission statements).  The idea that magically getting rid of those structures would be beneficial to everyone isn't true.
7. Postmodernism is grounded on hyperbole and overgeneralization--which is what it critiques modernism for.  It can ultimately become the fundamentalism it tries to critique.
8. Post-modernism results in hyper-individualism, without much in common.  The problems with this are described in Bowling Alone.
9. Most of postmoderns advantages can be captured by modern values and modern analytic tools.  You can examine power, ideology, and history without turning truth claims into mush.
10. Postmodernism results in ultimate relativism.  I've pointed to the problems of ethical relativism and relativism more broadly a number of times.  Here is one of those articles: A critique of relativistic theories of ethics
11. Assumptions & Caveats: To be fair, post-modernism is a rather broad field.  You would have to attack those folks around Heidegger, Nietzsche, Baudrillard, those postmoderns who talk about the nature of language, as well as a field-by-field analysis of the use of specific post-modern theories.