Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism

Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism Eagelton’s essay, Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism , was first published in the New Left Review in 1983 in which his post Marxist analysis of literature is exposed. He accounts for capitalism influence on art and its role. The capitalist and late capitalist areas have seen two new forms of literature appear: modern and postmodern. The modern, Eagleton explains, â€Å"In bracketing off the real social world, establish[es] a critical, negating distance between itself and the ruling social order† [1] , while postmodern works accepts the fact that it is a commodity and thus conflicts between its material reality and its aesthetic structure. Capitalism has turned art into a commodity, and after analysing this claim, the characteristics of modern and postmodern genres will be analysed, so as to understand literature’s role. Eagleton explains how â€Å"High modernity [†¦] was born at a stroke with mass commodity culture.† [2] Capitalism, as defin ed by Marx is the bourgeois doctrine by which they are in possession of the modes of production and manufacture goods, sold for a profit. According to most Marxist thinkers, including Eagleton, art became one of the goods that the bourgeoisie wants to monopolise, produce and sell. Art has become a commodity, dissolved into social life. Eagleton denounces the effects of late capitalism on art: â€Å"if the artefact is a commodity, the commodity can always be an artefact. â€Å"Art† and â€Å"life† indeed interbreed† [3] . Eagleton points out that that the â€Å"performative principle†, which he redefines as the deliverance of goods, also applies to the capitalist conception of art. The use of â€Å"best seller† as criteria of advertisement for literature proves that literature has become a mass commodity good. Art and literature have been influenced by some characteristics of late capitalism, such as virtual reality based on mass consumerism. Our so ciety focuses on commodities sold to and ideologically integrated by the consumer: â€Å"The commodity is less an image in the sense of a â€Å"reflection† than an image of itself, its entire material being devoted to its own self-presentation† [4] . Art has become centred on its own image, role and place within society, because it has somehow lost its utopian role of mirroring the world, as if capitalism has perverted its function: â€Å"If the unreality of the artistic image mirrors the unreality of its society as a whole, then it is to say that it mirrors nothing real and so does not really mirror at all.† [5] Modernism and postmodernism are genres that emerged in the capitalist and late capitalist stages. They seem to have a common point: to focus on their role and concentrate on self identity. Eagleton uses de Man’s deconstructivist theory to define modernism: â€Å"Literature defines and pre-empts its own cultural institutionalisation by textually introjecting it, hugging the very chains which bind it, discovering its own negative form of transcendence in its power of literally naming, and thus partially distancing, its own failure to engage in the real.† [6] Modernism attempts at representing the real, but cannot do so and raises a paradox: it â€Å"resists commodification† [7] but is nonetheless part of it, thus part of the social and cultural superstructure of society, which it denies. Denying being part of the capitalist mass commodity is the very core of modern failure to represent the real.

How YouTube Can Affect Media and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

How YouTube Can Affect Media and Society - Essay Example For example, Comedy Central asked the video-sharing company to remove clips of their copyrighted clips such as South Park and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Noguchi and Goo). On the other hand, some companies like NBC see YouTube as a powerful promotion tool which can help generate buzz for their shows, at no cost! In the same article, the authors quoted NBC Executive Vice President Rick Cotton when he said, â€Å"This medium is at the cutting edge†¦I think our creative executives feel that ‘The Office’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ benefit from the significant attention we’ve gotten online† (as quoted in Noguchi and Goo). Yet, Cotton says that in order to use YouTube effectively, one has to know where to draw the line. In line with this statement, Cotton revealed that around 1,000 clips were removed from YouTube in 2006, particularly those which had entire show episodes. In its early years, YouTube’s mechanism for deleting copyrighte d shows allowed it legal immunity but searching the site for TV show episodes is a job allotted to the company owning the copyright. Needless to say, it was a tedious job, and many of the copyrighted video clips were left posted on the site. Today, however, YouTube has the Automated Content ID in place in order to prevent copyright infringements. With this new technology, major US network, movie studio and record label can earn extra income through YouTube’s monetized view feature. From its humble beginning, YouTube has singlehandedly changed the web from static pages to an interactive web eco-system. Thanks to the conscientious development of video sharing technology, YouTube is now an important aspect of advertising. Major corporations such as Nike and Chrysler use YouTube to promote their ad to more audiences. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that many companies are bypassing the TV networks and are broadcasting their advertisements directly to YouTube (Rosenblum). In the a rticle, the author says â€Å"increasingly, YouTube is the go-to place for video, and it seems some companies have decided to bypass the broadcast first rule entirely†¦It’s a sign that true video (as opposed to repurposed an afterthought) is beginning to enter mainstream thinking† (Rosenblum). As many companies start to produce videos for the web alone, YouTube is becoming a go-to source for almost any kind of information – from entertainment to politics, how-to videos, film animation and many others. The importance of YouTube is so widespread that Mashable expresses three important developments in the media industry: (1) the next TVs will have internet connectivity and it will be able to access YouTube XL, a version optimized for the big screen; (2) YouTube can be easily accessed through mobile phones; (3) the ability to create live video streaming (Ostrow). In his 2009 article, Adam Ostrow hails YouTube as the embodiment of social media since its inceptio n. In his words, â€Å"YouTube is the innovation that touched the most lives, became a driving force for change around the world, and ultimately ends the decade with an opportunity to be as disruptive in the next 10 years as it was in the past four† (Ostrow). Thanks to its embeddable content, videos posted on the site can be viewed on websites and other social networking sites.  

Economy of China Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Economy of China - Research Paper Example Contextually, with respect to commercial activities, national limitations are lessening in terms of legitimate administrations where independent federations are performing as the principal power over their respective regions (Kojima, 2002, pp. 1-2). A similar notion can also be held true in the context of China’s relation with major global powers, including the US, UK, and other countries. On political and economic grounds, serious economic conflicts have transpired in recent times between China and other economies, especially those concerning the US in numerous aspects. Besides, the Chinese economy is also facing problems which are likely to have the profound impact on the world economy (Xuetong, 2010, pp. 267-269). Considering these aspects, this essay will review the world politics on international business causing conflicts, majorly between China and US along with other nations. Therefore, the prime focus of the essay will be on the economic problems witnessed by China concerning its relations in the global arena. Stating precisely, the objective of the essay is to evaluate the economic issues currently witnessed by China in the international context from different perspectives. In the global political history, two most apparent changes in power have been identified in the recent occurrences; one being the rise of European economy after ‘Industrial Revolution’ and the other being the rise of the American economy in the post-Civil War era (Zhou, 2008, pp.171). These power moves have resulted in international conflicts with the motive to acquire more authority in the global trade systems. It was during this era that weakening nations became more probable to lose the governing position in the international business system, thereby increasing the gap in relation to international power distribution.  Ã‚