Modern to POMO-The Transformation from Age of Structure to Age of Anxiety

No one in the oral era, the scribal era or even the modern era would have predicted that the world would be like it is today. Society and cultures around the globe are so different and undefinable that communication scholars really aren’t too sure what to think of it. When thinking about the postmodern era, scholars can actually refer back to an intelligent individual in the communication field Mr. Marshall McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan released a novel near the end of the 1960s entitled “The Media is the Massage.” “Massage doesn’t make sense,” an average individual would say, but McLuhan left the title that way for a reason. Different mediums of communication massage our senses and gives us different perspectives on reality. Studying media and communication is not about the media and content people see and hear but rather the device or channel itself that has created a complete transformation to the world. Although the book was released decades ago it’s a bit extraordinary that McLuhan had all these ideas and theories about media and communication that are accurate in life today. On page 48 of McLuhan’s book, he talks about previous to writing “men lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless…” Writing began to put organization and structure to the world leading to categorization and institutions aka the modern era. But now, more and more individuals are going against the grain and not following a horizontal direction of life. For example, as discussed in class, many people don’t favor institutionalized religion. Since there are so many choices we make in life and there are so many new approaches to living, people are picking and choosing what they want to believe in and not following the strict ways of their religion. That is what postmodernism is about. Perhaps choice is something we take for granted but having choice doesn’t necessarily mean it’s been the best thing cultures can have. Having choice means having to make decisions and having decisions means having to understand different options. This is why *POMO* is a time of living in an age of anxiety. Prior to the 1960s, mostly everyone was born, went to school, worked at one job for the rest of their life, had a family and that was it. Now it’s more like, babies are born, maybe they’re born female, maybe male, maybe a mix of both, they could be gay etc. Fortunately, school is still a requirement for everyone but as far as after middle school not all students finish high school, not all go to college, not all work in one job. The list goes on going back to the key point that postmodernism is all about these unlimited choices. So who and what can make these choices?

The modern era was the period where there was a set of master narratives-understood and appropriate dominate values and ways of living your life. The master narratives have really been diminished and the postmodern era is primarily individuals following social narratives. The reason that is, all decisions and choices are made by networks vs. state (networks are becoming stronger and stronger). It’s difficult for individuals to decide who and what they want to be and that’s why morality is so relative. As discussed in class, and in Soha’s piece breaking down the cultural eras-television has put the “anti-hero” up on the pedestal. Prior to the postmodern period, it was unheard of that an “anti-hero” would be the character that people support and connect to the most. Another common direction television shows create for the mass are “mockumentaries.” There was no such genre of a show until the postmodern period. The show like “Modern Family” that is supposed to represent contemporary families including multiracial and homosexual couples. Throughout the show the characters make conversation directly at the camera to act like they’re talking to us as friends and we relate to them. The reason this show had such a positive reaction from the audience is because it’s a show that differentiated from the typical Anglo-Saxon family that lived an ordinary life. “Modern Family” is a prime example of what living in the postmodern period is all about. Some aspects of the show such as the Claire, the stay-at-home mom, and Phil, the typical working dad is still a bit modern but overall the show is a depiction of postmodernism and the emphasis on social narratives. It’s difficult to predict how long postmodernism is going to last and if scholars will ever be able to distinctly describe this era unanimously.