Postmodern Perspectives According to this perspective, all existing theories have been unsuccessful in explaining social life in modern societies that are characterized by post-industrialization, consumerism and global communications Postmodernists oppose grand narratives (ie. Generalizations developed in academic isolation) Instead they emphasize the free-flowing sharing of ideas and the removal of boundaries between academic disciplines

Postmodern Perspectives Post modernists have been criticized for ignoring many of the central problems of our time For example: inequalities based on race, class, gender; also inequalities based on global, political and economic oppression

Postmodern Perspectives Response Questions What characterizes the postmodern society? According to the postmodernists, what does our fast-paced, high-tech world force us to do? According to the postmodern approach, what did the media’s representation of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide reflect?

Postmodern Perspectives Response Questions What characterizes the postmodern society? Postmodern societies emerged after WWII. They are characterized by an information explosion and an economy in which large numbers of people either provide or apply information, or are employed in service jobs (eg. Fast food server, health care worker). They are also characterized by the rise of a consumer society and the emergence of a global village, in which people around the world communicate with one another by electronic technologies such as television, telephone, fax, email and the Internet.

Postmodern Perspectives Response Questions According to the postmodernists, what does our fast-paced, high-tech world force us to do? Our fast-paced, high-tech world forces us to develop our own coherent narrative order (ie. world view) by which we understand ourselves and the social events that take place around us.

Postmodern Perspectives Response Questions According to the postmodern approach, what did the media’s representation of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide reflect? According to the postmodern approach, the media’s representation of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide (where they said that the Internet played an actual role in the fatal event), reflects a world in which individuals and the media may establish “fake” realities and pseudo-explanations in the absence of real knowledge about events or causes.