Modernism vs.

Postmodernism:
Modern media vs. the postmodern texts I have studied:
Purpose Unlike Nolans film Inception, The Dark Knight has a purpose to re-establish the Batman franchise by highlighting the moralistic concepts associated with the hero-villain relationship between Batman and the Joker. Play Inception plays with many conventions include the use of physics in its metanarratives. Inception focuses on bending the rules or manipulating time and space. E.g. the use of the impossible staircase.

Creation, totalization The song Gangnam style is focused on the total, absolute metanarrative associated with human reality. Lyrics such as sexy lady point to this conclusion. The song does not completely rely on intertextual references to progress with its narrative the way Symphonies does.

Deconstruction Dan Blacks music track Symphonies deconstructs the various use of intertextuality within it to portray the message that everything is a remix, just like Kirby Ferguson implied. E.g. the Tron reference seen in this image.

Narrative The movie Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows part 2 contains a narrative adapted from its book counterpart. The film is based on the final chapter of a series of adventures involving the characters. The story is structured and the metanarratives featured contribute to the sequence of events that take place.

Anti-narrative The movie Expendables 2 is more about providing fan service to the target audience than anything else. A plot is barely existent and is very basic and not entirely relevant to the events which transpire. The movie is mostly about providing nostalgic moments including all the huge action stars from the 1980s. E.g. the cool but pointless scene between Arnold and Bruce with the Ill be back line.

Hypotaxis This means beneath arrangement. It is two constructs playing an unequal role in a sentence. In a media text, two things which play an unequal role in a narrative include the songs It must be Jesus, and I got a woman. Jesus is possibly the original, with I got a woman being homage. While Jesus is possibly the original song before Woman and later Gold Digga, I got a woman is the more popular one of the two, and usually the song in the chain of bricolage that is more commonly known as the original source as to where Kanye Wests Gold Digga got it resources from.

Parataxis This favours short, simple sentences with use of co-ordinating as opposed to subordinating conjunctions. The two elements here will be side by side. A PoMo example of this would be the parody music video made by One Direction called What makes you beautiful. This song contains two arguments serving as plot metanarratives. These being that the members are gay and proud as a response to the criticisms the public can issue, and the equally prominent argument or theme of the manager saying stop acting gay because they will lose their fans. The plot progresses using this conflict.

Paradigm Genre movies such as Kung Fu Panda are those which follow conventions set by the media industry regarding genres. These movies are merely representing and functioning with a single pattern or model that contributes to a greater presence of many other models.

Syntagm Kanye Wests Gold Digga is an example of a media text that undergoes a process of construction via a chain of different texts which act as a signifier towards its successor. The song originates, or constructs from the previous link in the chain, I got a woman. This song is also a copy of It must be Jesus. These series of songs represent a chain of semiotic processes which construct a text through intertextuality and bricolage.

Metaphor A film that uses metaphor and imagery to create a plot, set of characters, and environment is Toy Story which uses the imagery of childrens toys to create a world around them. The narrative of the film is based on the metaphor that toys can feel alive.

Metonymy An example of a postmodern media text which uses this includes Inglorious Basterds which uses various action scenes within the film that bare striking resemblance to the Odessa steps sequence to substitute a similar meaning to, but ultimately substitute actual warfare scenes. Trench battles and typical war film conflict sequences do not appear in the film, thanks to Taratinos attempt to produce an unfitting war film.

Transcendence A film with a typical structure such as Star Wars would use the concept of transcendence to highlight certain characters, micro narratives, and emotions that contribute to the preferred or oppositional reading of an audience viewer. Star Wars, for instance, uses this to transcend Luke Skywalker, Leia and Han Solo as the 3 protagonists and Darth Vader as the main antagonist against all the other featured lesser characters in the story. The plot to destroy the empire is also transcended above other sub plots.

Immanence The character has its principle within itself and one cannot exist without the other, in contrast to transcendence where an upper and a lower case exist. Scott Pilgrim vs. the world for example, has Scott exist for the purpose of getting with Ramona not matter how many evil exs he must battle. Without this principle, there is little interest in relation to the character.

Metaphysics The video game Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 is a war game that focuses on the fundamental nature of the world and the reality in regards to the modern warfare, as it says on the tin. The gameplay is based on the capture of real life warfare nostalgia and tries to supply a sense of the nature of war and its reality in the minds of the players.

Irony In contrast to metaphysics, media texts with PoMo elements in them focus on the irony of the nature of reality and subvert the expectations and conventions set by media texts. A postmodern example would be the video game Crash Bandicoot. Firstly, it ironically plays on the idea that a Bandicoot can walk and run the same as human being. It also exaggerates the health that a fruit, in this case an apple, can provide to someone, among other uses or irony.

Synthesis In this process, two or more entities combine to make something new. The advertisement by British Gas uses 2 entities, toe song Our House in the middle of our street, and the Starman theme tune. It combines these previous texts to create a new meaning. (But unlike PoMo, it does not necessarily highlight these references with obvious intent to make them recognisable to audiences, hence bricolage not being so effective here.)

Antithesis This is where 2 opposites are introduced at once to create a contrasting effect. Dr Manhattan contains a song from Birth of a nation and later Apocalypse now composed by Vagner to use in a scene. It also captures the danger and chaos associated with the Vietnam war in that sequence. The flight of the Valkyries song is unfitting and sounds too heroic (despite its original meaning) to not be a contrasting elements with the visual events occurring in the scene.

Hierarchy A TV show with a sense of order, structure, and hierarchical authority would be Dr Who, which contains a hierarchical structure of characters. (Doctor, companions, one time characters and villains, etc) This further progresses to a hierarchy of episodes per season, with a series finale containing the most significant interconnected metanarratives. Unlike the anarchy example, the plot structure is relevant and all characters, emotions and other elements are relevant, progressive, and fitting to the plot.

Anarchy A postmodern show with a lack of order and structure would be Flight of the Conchords. In this show, various use of intertextuality are made, such as the Elton John and Obama impersonators, and bricolage is created using the reference to the Matrix despite this not being plot relevant. Also, parodies of previous songs are used during the course of episodes despite these songs being irrelevant to the plot and serving no purpose other than creating a bricolage. Little of the story in an episode focuses on the main plot and various references are used to entertain PoMo audiences which nevertheless dilute the focus of the narrative.