Editing Postmodernity (section)

== History ==
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Some authors, such as Lyotard and Baudrillard, believe that modernity ended in the late 20th century and thus have defined a period subsequent to modernity, namely postmodernity,{{Citation needed|date=April 2023|reason=If they make this claim, it must be said where.}} while others, such as [[Zygmunt Bauman]] and [[Anthony Giddens]], would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. {{Citation needed|date=April 2023|reason=These are well-known academics and proper references to their work must be given.}} Others still contend that modernity ended with the [[Victorian era|Victorian Age]] at the turn of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=William D. |title=Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, and a Black Aesthetic |publisher=Praeger |location=New York |year=1997 |isbn=0-275-95542-7}}</ref>

Postmodernity has gone through two relatively distinct phases: the first beginning in the late 1940s and 1950s and ending with the [[Cold War]] (when [[analog media]] with limited [[Bandwidth (signal processing)|bandwidth]] encouraged a few, authoritative media channels), and the second beginning at the end of the Cold War (marked by the spread of cable television and "[[new media]]" based on [[Digital data|digital]] means of information dissemination and broadcast).

The first phase of postmodernity overlaps the end of [[modernity]] and is part of the [[Modern era|modern period]] ''(see [[Lumpers and splitters|lumpers/splitters]], [[periodization]])''. Television became the primary news source, manufacturing decreased in importance in the economies of Western Europe and the [[History of the United States (1945–1964)|United States]] but trade volumes increased within the developed core. In 1967–1969 a crucial cultural explosion took place within the developed world as the [[Baby boomers|baby boom generation]], which had grown up with postmodernity as its fundamental experience of society, demanded entrance into the political, cultural and educational power structure. A series of demonstrations and acts of rebellion – ranging from nonviolent and cultural, through violent acts of terrorism – represented the opposition of the young to the policies and perspectives of the previous age. Opposition to the [[Algerian War]] and the [[Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War|Vietnam War]], to laws allowing or encouraging racial segregation and to laws which overtly discriminated against women and restricted access to divorce, increased use of [[cannabis (drug)|marijuana]] and [[Psychedelic drug|psychedelics]], the emergence of pop cultural styles of music and drama, including [[Rock and roll|rock music]] and the ubiquity of stereo, television and radio helped make these changes visible in the broader cultural context. This period is associated with the work of [[Marshall McLuhan]], a philosopher who focused on the results of living in a [[media culture]] and argued that participation in a mass media culture both overshadows actual content disseminated and is liberating because it loosens the authority of local social normative standards.

The second phase of postmodernity is "[[digitality]]" – the increasing power of personal and [[Digital data|digital]] means of communication including [[Fax|fax machines]], [[modem]]s, [[Cable television|cable]] and [[Broadband|high speed internet]], which has altered the condition of postmodernity dramatically: digital production of information allows individuals to manipulate virtually every aspect of the media environment. This has brought producers into conflict with consumers over [[intellectual capital]] and intellectual property and led to the creation of a [[new economy]] whose supporters argue that the dramatic fall in information costs will alter society fundamentally.

Digitality, or what [[Esther Dyson]] referred to as "being digital", emerged as a separate condition from postmodernity. The ability to manipulate items of popular culture, the World Wide Web, the use of search engines to index knowledge, and telecommunications were producing a "convergence" marked by the rise of "[[participatory culture]]" in the words of [[Henry Jenkins]].

One [[Demarcation problem|demarcation point]] of this era is the liberalization of China in the early 1980s and the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|collapse of the Soviet Union]] in 1991. [[Francis Fukuyama]] wrote "[[The End of History and the Last Man|The End of History?]]" in 1989 in anticipation of the [[Fall of the Berlin Wall]]. He predicted that the question of political philosophy had been answered, that large scale wars over fundamental values would no longer arise since "all prior contradictions are resolved and all human needs satisfied." This is a kind of 'endism' also taken up by [[Arthur Danto]] who in 1964 acclaimed that [[Andy Warhol]]'s Brillo boxes asked the right question of art and hence art had ended.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2022937 |jstor=2022937 |title=The Artworld |last1=Danto |first1=Arthur | journal=[[The Journal of Philosophy]] |date=1964 |volume=61 |issue=19 |pages=571–584 |doi=10.2307/2022937|url-access=subscription }}</ref>