Exam preparation

L.O: To prepare for a mini

exam question
 Terminology Test!
Parody
Pastiche
Hyperreality
Structured reality
Verisimilitude
Hyperidenties
 Postmodern media blur the boundary
between reality and representation. Discuss
this idea with reference to media texts that
you have studied. (June 2010)
Key Words
Blur the boundary:
Reality:
Representation:

Texts to Use
In the real exam you will have to quickly make the decision of
which texts you want to use out of the ones we have studied.
What are the rules for this?
You must write about at least two different forms of media
For this practice exam you will be writing about: Structured reality
and computer games
Answering the Q in a few sentences

How do the texts blur the boundaries

between reality and representation?
Structured Reality:
GTA:
MMORPG:

I am expecting you to write about five paragraphs

for this practice exam. Decide how many paras you
want to write about for each text. You dont have to
write about every one e.g. you might decide you
want to do two paras on SR and three paras on
GTA.
Postmodern media blur the boundary between reality
and representation. Discuss this idea with reference
to media texts that you have studied.

Introduction: Definition Ideas: Remember point sentences

need to refer to the question.
of pomo, introduce the When watching SR, the audience
idea of how they blur dont know what is real or what has
been constructed for entertainment.
boundaries between GTA: real streets of LA, real music
reality and rep. on the radio etc creating quite a
high level of verisimilitude. Uses the
Para 1: Try to voices of real gangsters. Elements of
use parody within this hyperreal world.
Para 2: Blurring the line between player and
three character. You as the character can
Para 3: phone other real people.
quotes! MMORPG: create an avatar and move
Para 4: around in the game world interacting
with other avatars who represent real
Para 5: people. Social, economic and
hyperidentity implications
Conclusion
 Exam feedback

L.O: To be able to improve our

work
Starter: Look at my feedback-
write down one thing you lack
confidence in for this part of the
exam.
 Feedback
WWW:
Point: Make a point about an element of pomo media that
specifically blurs the boundary between reality and
representation
Example: Give a specific example from the text of when
this blurring of the boundary occurs

EBI:
Explanation: Explain how this blurring works, what is
occurring, what its implications are
Link: What do audiences derive from this? Are there
criticisms of this? Are there wider
social/technological/ideological/ future implications?
 One game that I have studied which blurs
the boundary between reality and
representation is the game GTA. In GTA a
sense of hyper reality is created through
the way they mimic the real world. They
feature things from the real LA, real music
on the radio, which also creates a high
level of verisimilitude. These features blur
reality and offer escapism to players.
Link: What do audiences derive from
this? Are there criticisms of this? Are
there wider
social/technological/ideological/futu
re implications?
 Look at the criticism in pairs

Write the main ideas simply- what is the

critic saying?
Underline what you feel to be the most
important sentence
Think about our media examples- how
could this criticism be linked to any of
the texts we have looked at?
Look at your essay- can this quote be
linked to any of the ideas you have
written?
 Lets write an example of
how this would work.
GTA is a postmodern video game as it uses
hyperreality to blur the boundaries between
reality and representation. Specifically GTA is a
parody as it is a negative representation of our
world and society. For example GTA has
repetitive obscure material from violence to sex
which opposes the hierarchy, however besides
from leaving your morals at the door you also
become immune to the morals represented in
the game. This is due to the fact that
postmodernism is no longer shocking and has
become part of the establishment.
In Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
Baudrillard postulated that we inhabit a
society made up wholly of simulacra
simulations of reality that replace any
pure reality. Pure reality is replaced by
the hyperreal where any boundary
between the real and the imaginary is
eroded. The hyperreal is "more real than
real": something fake and artificial comes
to be more definitive of the real than
reality itself.
The futility of everything that comes to
us from the media is the inescapable
consequence of the absolute inability of
that particular stage to remain silent.
Music, commercial breaks, news flashes,
adverts, news broadcasts, movies,
presentersthere is no alternative but
to fill the screen; otherwise there would
be an irremediable void Baudrillard
In his book Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Capital of Late
Capitalism (1991) postulated that postmodernism is no
longer shocking and has become part of the establishment
it has become its own metanarrative. As for the
postmodern revolt against all that, however, it must equally
be stressed that its own offensive features from obscurity
and sexually explicit material to psychological squalor and
overt expressions of social and political defiance, which
transcend anything that might have been imagined at the
most extreme moments of high modernism no longer
scandalise anyone and are not only received with the
greatest complacency but have themselves become
institutionalised and are at one with the official or public
culture of Western society. Fredric Jameson
The dissemination of new ways of thinking which make the
real and the virtual equal is only a matter of time.
Videogames, and especially networked games, are one of the
most accurate metaphors of contemporary life. Games are
the medium that most perfectly describe our existence and
express the way the human self functions in the
contemporary world, It is on screen that we can compose our
hyper-identity in the most imposing way. Having a free hand
when creating our own images is a commonly- accepted
convention in internet but not in the offline world; or rather
not yet, because the future belongs to interactive media and
hyperidentity.
Filiciak
 Write an improvement!

Aim to consider your links to the

future and to critics!!