Please wait a minute...
Frontiers of Philosophy in China

ISSN 1673-3436

ISSN 1673-355X(Online)

CN 11-5743/B

Postal Subscription Code 80-983

Front. Philos. China    2017, Vol. 12 Issue (2) : 265-277    https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-006-017-0019-1
Orginal Article
Modernity and Postmodernity: The Characteristics of Postmodern Cultural Media
TONG Li()
Research Institute for European and American Cultural Philosophy, Tianjin Foreign Studies University, Tianjin 300204, China
 Download: PDF(232 KB)  
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

From the academic frontier of modernity and postmodernity, the author aims at exploring the fission between modernity and postmodernity and also the characteristics of postmodern cultural media from a philosophical vantage point. This paper illustrates three aspects of Western modernity: individual modernity, social modernity, and instrumental modernity, and it also clarifies the issues in modernity, starting by explaining three forms of the cultural fission: avant-garde, modernism, and postmodernism. The paper then demonstrates that the rise of postmodernity represents a new transformation and new characteristics of contemporary Western spirit, namely, the collision and compatibility of various concepts, in which popular culture and high culture, mass culture and elite culture, fashion and games as well as noise and silence have constituted an uncanny landscape of cultural media. This eerie landscape displays the indeterminacy of language, culture, art, consciousness, and aesthetics. From the perspective of theoretical innovation, the author proposes that the postmodern cultural media always displays its commodity and instrumentality, plays and entertainment, anti-culture and anti-art, replication and fabrication logically and practically as an outcome of post-industrial society. In conclusion, three critical issues are addressed: personal spiritual belief, the development of mass culture, and aesthetic principles. The postmodern cultural media has deeply influenced traditional culture, aesthetics, and how they are evaluated, resulting in cultural conflicts and a humanistic dilemma in the world of contemporary capitalism.

Keywords modernity      postmodernity      postmodern cultural media      characteristics     
Issue Date: 24 July 2017
 Cite this article:   
TONG Li. Modernity and Postmodernity: The Characteristics of Postmodern Cultural Media[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2017, 12(2): 265-277.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/10.3868/s030-006-017-0019-1
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/Y2017/V12/I2/265
[1] LI Cunshan. Forty Years’ Study of Chinese Philosophy[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2018, 13(4): 634-650.
[2] Gerard Walmsley. Is There a Place for Traditional Values and Virtues in Society Today?[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2013, 8(1): 31-52.
[3] HAN Zhen , . Some Remarks on the Re-building of the Category of Essence and the Reflective Modernity[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2010, 5(1): 134-141.
[4] WU Zhongwei. The mind as the essence of words: A linguistic philosophical analysis of the classifi cation teaching of Yongming Yanshou[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2007, 2(3): 336-344.
[5] Feng Ziyi. A contemporary interpretation of Marx’s thoughts on modernity[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2006, 1(2): 254-268.
[6] Yang Geng, Zhang Qixue. The essence, characteristics and limitation of post-colonialism: from Karl Marx’s point of view[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2006, 1(2): 279-294.
[7] Yi Junqing. Dimensions of Modernity and Their Contemporary Fate[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2006, 1(1): 6-21.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed