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What are the limits of human independence to think today?
Territory This essay will consider the change in the methods of advertising used by charities to raise money for projects in Africa. I will consider two periods in history: the 20th Century, more specifically 1985 onwards, and the 21st Century. 1985 is a critical period in my discussion as it signifies the first broadcast of ‘Live Aid’, a concert and television exposé on poverty in Africa. The empirical data I will use as evidence come from specific adverts and news coverage from various African aid charities within these time periods.
Intent Using The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard, 1984) and other sources I will outline the background theory concerning the societal shift from modernism to postmodernism, the incredulity of meta-narratives which characterise this shift, and the driving force behind the shift according to Lyotard: language games. For each theory I will use evidence from adverts and news reports to demonstrate that these changes have occurred. What this essay will demonstrate is a shift from a universally accepted meta-narrative: Africa in ‘poverty crisis’, to a fluidity in the narrative of the problem. This fluidity is characterised by many different narratives which show a fundamental break from modernity and the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
Postmodernism The shift from modernism to postmodernism is characterised by philosophers such as Lyotard as a fragmentation of society along with a break from the paradigm of rationalism set forth by the Enlightenment (Featherstone, 2007, p.3). In information, the process by which the move occurs involves the growth of connections from advances in technology – most notably the internet, mobile phones and 24 hour television. This creates a global society in which there are many sources of information, which are often convoluted, leading to a breakdown of relatively few meta-narratives into many. Human independence to think under these
Territory This essay will consider the change in the methods of advertising used by charities to raise money for projects in Africa. I will consider two periods in history: the 20th Century, more specifically 1985 onwards, and the 21st Century. 1985 is a critical period in my discussion as it signifies the first broadcast of ‘Live Aid’, a concert and television exposé on poverty in Africa. The empirical data I will use as evidence come from specific adverts and news coverage from various African aid charities within these time periods.
Intent Using The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard, 1984) and other sources I will outline the background theory concerning the societal shift from modernism to postmodernism, the incredulity of meta-narratives which characterise this shift, and the driving force behind the shift according to Lyotard: language games. For each theory I will use evidence from adverts and news reports to demonstrate that these changes have occurred. What this essay will demonstrate is a shift from a universally accepted meta-narrative: Africa in ‘poverty crisis’, to a fluidity in the narrative of the problem. This fluidity is characterised by many different narratives which show a fundamental break from modernity and the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
Postmodernism The shift from modernism to postmodernism is characterised by philosophers such as Lyotard as a fragmentation of society along with a break from the paradigm of rationalism set forth by the Enlightenment (Featherstone, 2007, p.3). In information, the process by which the move occurs involves the growth of connections from advances in technology – most notably the internet, mobile phones and 24 hour television. This creates a global society in which there are many sources of information, which are often convoluted, leading to a breakdown of relatively few meta-narratives into many. Human independence to think under these
Bibliography: Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism – Second Edition, SAGE publications Ltd., 2007, London Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Translation by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Foreward by Fredric Jameson, Manchester University Press, 1984, UK James Williams, Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Polity Press, 1998, UK