Postmodernism & Deutschland 83: blog tasks

 Postmodernism & Deutschland 83: blog tasks

Media Magazine - A Postmodern Reimagining of the Past

Media Magazine 73 has a feature exploring Deutschland 83 as a postmodern media product. Read ‘Deutschland 83 - A Postmodern Reimagining of the Past’ in MM73  (p18). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions:

1) What were the classic media representations of the Cold War?

Representations of Cold War-era Germany often fit a stereotypical binary ‘good vs evil’ The Cold War – the state of tension and hostility between the Soviet bloc countries and the West from 1945 to 1990 – has inspired a series of film and media texts within the spy genre.

2) Why does Deutschland 83 provide a particularly good example for postmodern analysis? 

The spy genre was a staple of 70s television, most notably on the BBC – Codename (1970), and Quiller (1975) and shows concerning defectors from and traitors to the West like ITV’s Philby, Burgess and McClean (1977) and BBC’s Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy (1979).

3) Pick out some of the aspects of the opening of episode 1 and explain why they are significant.

There was scene where they had the 1980s theme offices to show the tension when they were talking about sending Martin to the west to spy.

4) How does the party scene at Martin's mum's house subvert stereotypes of East Germany in the Cold War?

This is because the young people havign a party and singing to "99 Luftballoons",this shows that the east is having a great timr with themselves.

5) What aspects of the episode set in West Germany offer postmodern elements?

The aspect of the episode set in West Germany that offer postmodern elements is when MArtin is in the supermarket and they play the pop song"sweet dreams are made of this"as its not linked to the war.

6) Finally, how does the article apply postmodern theory to Deutschland 83 and link it to the potential target audience?

The aricle applys to the postmodern theory as this makes the modern audinece appealed as they think about the history and come to a conclusion on how no one knows the truth.

Postmodernism Factsheet

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #54: Introduction to Postmodernism. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. If you need to access this from home you can find our factsheet archive here (you'll need to use your Greenford login).

1) Read the section on Strinati's five ways to define postmodernity. What examples are provided of the breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (media-isation)?

Advertising can make or break a company irrespective of the quality of the product they are selling, a poor quality product can be commercially successful if it has great advertising whilst an excellent product can fail without it. Where once the reality of the product would create its success or failure (e.g. how well it worked), now the media reality of advertising  determines the success of products.

2) What is Fredric Jameson's idea of 'historical deafness'? How can the idea of 'historical deafness' be applied to Deutschland 83?

Related to this, according to Jameson, is the idea of historical deafness. He argues that as mediaization increases so the culture finds itself losing a sense of historical context. History is now reduced to ‘talking heads’ documentaries and historical knowledge is often based on media representations.

3) What examples and theories are provided for the idea of 'style over substance'?

People are strongly influenced by branding when buying products. The label sometimes becomes more important than the product itself and packaging more important than the contents. People will pay high prices for products which bear the logo of a fashionable label regardless of the actual quality of the product.

4) What examples from music are provided for the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture? Can this be applied to Deutschland 83?

In postmodern culture Andy Warhol created multi-coloured prints of the Mona Lisa (high art) and Campbell’s soup cans 4 (low art).

. Pop music (low art) often samples classical music (high art) 

. Advertising (low art) often makes reference to visual art (high art) or uses classical music (high art) to help sell its products.

5) What is bricolage? What examples of bricolage can be found in Deutschland 83?

This idea of mixing references is referred to as bricolage (meaning jumbled). Bricolage refers to the process of adapting and juxtaposing old and new texts, images, ideas or narratives to produce whole new meanings.

6) How can the audience pleasures of Deutschland 83 be linked to postmodernism? Read 'The decline of meta-narratives' and 'Media texts and the postmodern' to help answer this.

Meta-narratives (or grand narratives (Lyotard) literally meaning ‘big stories’) are the ideas and concepts that have been used to attempt to explain the way the world is and the way it should be. Human history is full of these grand narratives from religion to political/economic theories.The scenes teachus the cold war conditions,postmodernism helps us understand the story.

7) Now look at page 4 of the factsheet. How does Deutschland 83 demonstrate aspects of the postmodern in its construction and ideological positioning?

Deutschland 83 demonstrates aspects of the postmodern in its construction as its its based on true events.

8) Which key scenes from Deutschland 83 best provide examples of postmodernism? Why?

The training montage is like those in classic spy and thrillers movies