- The nation-state; bureaucratic institutions; capitalism; mass production; rationality; science; technology; individualism.
- Technological development; global media; geographical mobility; the growth of transnational corporations; loss of power of nation-states.
- A set of established ideas that determines how we view and think of things.
- A theory or idea that claims to explain the totality of social life, e.g. Marxism.
- Meta-narratives cannot be proved; they have been used by oppressive regimes; they silence minority views.
- Signs that bear no relation to physical reality and stand for nothing other than themselves, e.g. tabloid newspaper reports about fictional characters in ‘soaps’.
- That in high or late modern society, individuals monitor and reflect on their actions, modifying them in the light of information about risks and opportunities that they might involve.
- A society in which risks and dangers are increasingly human-made rather than natural and where individuals respond to these risks reflexively (see previous question).
- If postmodernists are correct that no theory can claim to have the truth, then postmodernism itself cannot be true. Postmodernism ignores power and inequality; it ignores the effects of poverty and wealth on our ability to construct our identities; individuals can often differentiate between media image and reality; the idea that all views are equally valid is not morally defensible; postmodernism is too pessimistic about the potential for progress and for discovering true knowledge about society.
- It enables production of customised products and this promotes cultural diversity. It allows production to switch easily from one product to another, encouraging constant shifts in fashion.
