Postmodern Theory and Internet George Ritzer



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Postmodern Theory and Internet

George Ritzer

Our understanding of the Internet, social networking, and the role of the 

prosumer in them is greatly enhanced by analyzing them through the lens of  

a number of ideas associated with postmodern theory.

There is, for example, Richard Rorty’s (1979) argument that the goal in any 

conversation, including those that characterize science, is not to find the “truth” 

but simply to keep the conversation going. The Internet is a site of the kinds 

of conversations envisioned by Rorty. It is a world in which there is rarely, if 

ever, an answer, a conclusion, a finished product, a truth. Instead, there are lots 

of ongoing conversations and many new ideas and insights. The Internet is a 

world devoted to keeping the conversation going. Prime examples of this include 

wikis in general and Wikipedia in particular, blogs and social networking sites. 

Google’s index is “constantly under development and can never result in a final, 

fixed directory of online content” (Bruns 2008: 175). All are sites that involve 

open-ended processes that admit of no final conclusion.

Postmodernists tend to decenter whatever they analyze and to focus on the 

periphery. One searches in vain for the center of the Internet in general or  

social networking sites in particular. They are all multi-faceted and always in  

the process of being made. As a result, even if a center could be found (and it 

can’t), it would immediately change. Internet sites are “networked structures 

[that] necessarily shift power away from the core, the tall peak, and towards  

the periphery” (Bruns, 2008: 274). Chris Anderson’s (2006) “long tail” reflects 

this kind of decentering. Instead of focusing on a few “hits”, blockbusters, or 

best sellers, the long tail involves an emphasis on the infinitely larger number  

of phenomena (e.g. books, music productions) that are part of the long tail.

The work of Jean Baudrillard offers a treasure trove of ideas that are very useful 

in thinking about the Internet and Web 2.0. Implosion involves the “contraction 

into each of other, a fantastic telescoping, a collapsing of the two traditional 

poles into one another” (Baudrillard, 1983: 57). The possibility of implosion is 

enormous in the digital world; the digitality of phenomena makes them much 

more amenable to imploding into one another; there are no physical barriers to 

limit, at least for very long, implosion in the that world. It is this, of course, that 

lies at the heart of the ability to remix and mashup sound, photos, text and  

much else on Web 2.0.

Postmodern Theory and Internet ……………………………………………….……………… George Ritzer

https://georgeritzer.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/postmodern-theory-and-internet/

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Then there is Baudrillard’s (1983: 4) most famous idea of simulations and his 

argument that we live in “the age of simulation”. Simulations are copies, even 

copies of copies. This ideas of copies is particularly relevant in the Internet age 

which is a world, as Shirky ( 2008: 59) argues, of “unlimited, perfect copyability”. 

The fact that copies are both unlimited and perfect (e.g. through file-sharing) 

makes the possibility of creating simulations on the Internet greater than ever 

before.

Simulations are not only copies, but they are also fakes. It is arguable that web-



based locales bring the age of simulation to perhaps its highest point, at least until 

we see later developments on the Internet. This is epitomized by the Sims and 

Second Life, as well as other artificial life simulations and games of various sorts. 

There are few, if any, material realities that restrict the ability to create simulations 

in these worlds; indeed, there is nothing in these worlds but simulations.

That means they beautifully illustrate another of Baudrillard’s ideas, hyperreality. 

The hyperreal is more real than real, as well as being more beautiful than 

beautiful, truer than true; it is beyond reality in every way. The Internet involves 

sites that are more more real than comparable sites in the material world. Amazon.

com has infinitely more books on sale than a bricks-and-mortar book stores and 

no parking lot based flea market can compare to the offerings on eBay. Baudrillard 

would have been astounded at the hyperreal sex available on many sites on  

the Internet. Remixes and mashups of photographs, videos, and the like are well-

suited to producing pornographic images that are more real than real.

Ultimately, Baudrillard (1990/1993: 6) sees us as living in the fractal age where 

things proliferate endlessly and expand in a viral or cancerous way. They have 

no goal other than endless proliferation. This is postmodern in the sense that 

the modern world was supposed to have an end or goal; the postmodern world 

does not. The Internet is legendarily viral with all sorts of texts and images, as 

well as viruses and spam, proliferating endlessly. description here fits the Internet 

perfectly, “In the end it makes everything circulate in one space, without depth, 

where all objects must be able to follow one after the other without slowing  

down or stopping the circuit” (Baudrillard, cited in Gane, 1993: 147). Everything 

in such a world, especially on the Internet, is available for communication, 

banalization, commercialization and consumption.

An interesting idea implicit in Baudrillard’s work is the “strength of the weak” 

(Genosko , 1992; 1994). In this case the weak are the individual users of the 

Internet and social networking sites. Their strength comes from the fact that their 

voices, while weak individually, become powerful when they are added together. 

Postmodern Theory and Internet ……………………………………………….……………… George Ritzer

https://georgeritzer.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/postmodern-theory-and-internet/

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