How do music videos/video
games/facebook/Nicki Minaj challenge
modern audiences in relations and concepts to representation?
Lyotard believes that society has a lack
of faith in progression through science and technology, and therefore
boundaries and structures are starting to be collapsed. This is evident in the
way some postmodern media texts are represented. Social networking and videos
games allow consumers to represent themselves in many different ways, so they
have fluid identities. As these media texts progress, the media text also
become the audience, so this challenges the boundaries between the two.
Audiences have control of these media texts, and without the consumer, the
media text would not continue or exist.
Jameson’s theory is a stylistic theory
that can challenge the audience, as a media text can represent postmodern
aspects, and take on different genres. An example of this is Nicki Minaj’s
music video for Super Bass. Nicki Minaj mixes the style of music between
R&B, pop, and rap. This collapses the boundaries between genres, attracting
different audiences to one artist. This can challenge modern audiences as they
may not have heard of this mix before. This is a post modern trait as it does
not stick within the set structures of a certain genre, it blurs different
genres, making the artist present herself with different styles.
Nicki Minaj styles herself like Barbie, an
early postmodern children’s toy. Some can argue that Nicki Minaj is a
simulation of Barbie and can bring nostalgia to the audience who admire her.
And according to Jameson, nostalgia is used to bring a sense of feeling to a
text that has been stripped from meaning due to there being no new ideas. The
reason Nicki Minaj uses these post modern aspects in her music video is because
audiences are interested in watching hyper real videos as a form of escapism. This
feeling of nostalgia can be seen in Wreck it Ralph also, as there are a mixture
of 80’s retro video games.
In opposition to Wreck it Ralph being
postmodern, it can also be described as a modern text as it has modernism
characteristics. In Wreck it Ralph, there are clear conventions of the bad guy
vs the good guy, and the man getting the women, where the Heroes Duty woman
falls in love with Fix it Felix. Their relationship could also be seen as
modern as it is a heterosexual relationship, which is seen as modernist. This
is a traditionalist view, as they live happily ever after, and the structure of
the narrative is linear; beginning, middle, end. Likewise the same comparison
can be given to the Wreck it Ralph saying that films have been around for
hundreds of years, and the film is not interactive. The post modern view of
this would oppose that they have created this film to be 3D, and that this is
where the film industry could be bearing as society demands to be interactive
with media texts.
In relation to the games seen in WIR, and
in society, video games are becoming more real with no boundaries and
concentrate on immersion for a better experience for the text readers. In the
early stages of post modernity popular games such as Pac Man and Space Invaders
involved levels, and different stages, conforming to having these structures.
As we come into the peak of post modernity and the start of digimodernism,
games such as Grand Theft Auto, and Sims have collapsed these boundaries and
broken the structure of the games, allowing more control and deeper immersion.
This could be because of the 3 minute attention span, and if you are not
winning the game, you will lose attention. However having full control of the
game allows you to represent yourself how you want, and to perhaps express
yourself. This also links back to the
postmodern aspect of fluid identities in Nicki Minaj’s music videos.
A theory aspect of postmodern media texts
according to DeBord is that everything is a spectacle. Modern Television shows
would have structure, and whether or not the audience was interactive, the tv
show would continue to run. This applies to X factor and Big Brother. These
shows are advertised as if you have the control of what happens in the series,
and involve the audiences. This breaks the barrier between the narrative of the
show, and the audience being inactive. The show can no longer exist if there is
not an audience as they audience control who leaves each week, and who deserves
a place on the show. Audiences now position themselves as if they are the
judges of the shows, and if they were not active in the voting system, they
would not accept any outcomes of who won the show, or got eliminated.
Furthermore, the need for interaction links to having a degree of power, and
watching a show on TV such as Big Brother leads onto the matter of voyeurism,
which theorist Foucault supports. Having a voyeuristic, controlling society
leads to the rise in popularity for social networking websites, such as Facebook,
where control and voyeurism is vast. This breaks the conventions and structures
of traditional text reader relations, where modernist viewers were passive.
The now voyeuristic and controlling social
networking websites such as Facebook, give the reader and user the power to
represent themselves however they wish, and to create a complete different
persona. This can cause people to have fluid identities and base their life on
a virtual representation. An example of another media text that does this is a
video game called Second Life. This as well as Sims, allows you to create a
person, build a life, and make new friendships. Postmodern games such as these
allow people to become so immersed in them that they start to believe that
their hyper real virtual life is a better choice. Escapism then becomes a
choice to the gamers, and they escape from reality into the hyper real version
of a life. This can become dangerous to society, as we could then neglect our
reality of living a real life And where would this lead us? Furthermore,
Facebook has the same influence on society as we can represent ourselves
however we want, and it has no limits. Facebook is a postmodern text as it
relies on its audience to keep it running, and without an audience Facebook
would cease to exist.
In conclusion, the traditional static
audience has been collapsed and is now an evermore interactive and power hungry
audience. The control in games is likely to evolve where the gamer can then buy
things for the game, and buy luxuries to have in the game. This lack in faith
in progression could cause gamers to ditch their reality completely and resort
to escaping into the hyper real world that they have created online through
their game or Facebook. The control they have over the games they are playing
may resort into their ‘hobby’ controlling them, as they become addicted to it.
We could see a society of affection-starved people when it comes to real life
interactions, and a generation of controlled gamers, living out their dreams in
a virtual life, while neglecting their own one. The addicted generation.
