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
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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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