Dissertation Abstract
Into the Postmodern Imaginary: A Critical Investigation
Of Mass Media, Simulations, Self, And
Social Interaction
by
David Ernest Boyns
Degree: Ph.D.
Year: 2004
Pages: 00429
Institution:
Advisor: Jonathan H. Turner
Source: DAI, 65, no. 01A (2004): p. 310
Postmodern theories have posed a critical challenge
to sociology. Current debates have distinguished between the "modern"
and the "postmodern." This work engages the postmodern challenge to
sociology, develops a "sociology of postmodernism"
and is divided into three substantive sections. The first section reviews the
theoretical discussions of the putative transition between the "modern"
and the "postmodern." Three modes of modernity are outlined to
describe the "modern" as a social project, a movement of cultural
aesthetics and a social form characterized by reflexive modernization. Parallel
distinctions are made between the "postmodern," "postmodernity,"
"postmodernism," and the process of "postmodernization."
The
second section investigates the key propositions of postmodern theory, namely
those concerning the emergence of a culture of simulations dominated by
free-floating signifiers. Critical attention is given to Jean Baudrillard's
notion of simulations. Postmodern approaches to culture are criticized
primarily for their advocacy of the proposition that a mass mediated culture of
simulations has initiated a "crisis of representation" that produces "free-floating"
unstable, hyperreal cultural objects that have no empirical reference points.
Because postmodern theories of culture rely upon the poststructural "demolition"
of the semiology of Ferdinand de Saussaure, postmodern theories describe a "collapse
of semiotics" under the deconstructive analysis of Jacques Derrida. An
alternative tradition of semiotics developed by Charles Sanders Peirce is
discussed, as well as the insights it's contemporary advocates Umberto Eco and Mark
Gottdiener. The theoretical efficacy of semiotic models of meaning is evaluated
with respect to four modes of sociological meaning. Because both semiotic and
postmodern analyses are not grounded within sociological processes, and have
completely disregarded the longstanding theories of social interaction
developed within sociology, their approaches produce a distorted view of
contemporary social life.
Finally,
the third section engages media studies and communications literature to assess
the claims of postmodern theories. One of the concerns of this section is the
observation that postmodern theories rely upon the putative effects of a
powerful mass mediated hyperreality and its ability to fragment meaning and
decenter the self, yet postmodern approaches do little to incorporate insights from
the theory and research into the mass media itself.
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: SOCIOLOGY, THEORY AND METHODS
MASS
COMMUNICATIONS
Accession
No: AAI3120581
Provider: OCLC
Database: Dissertations