MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

TRANSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA ART
modern as a departure from authenticity.“ 8 Turner outlines the conditions
of nostalgic paradigm in the era following the postmodern turn and states
that ontological nostalgia persist, while the elitist framework of studying
mass culture has become unsustainable as a result of breaking down the
boundaries and distinctions between the high and low, the elitist and
mass culture. Also, there are no authoritative norms of valuation, as the
postmodern doctrine of pluralism undermined the foundations of high
culture as the source of dominant valuation criteria.
The role of elitist criticism and of the intelligence in postmodern era is
further obstructed by the phenomenon of democratisation of culture,
the shift towards an equalitarian way of living, as well as by the blurring
of the division between the dominant and opposing culture (if any such
things exist). „...(this junction between culture and social structure)
creates a particular set of problems for the existence of an elite culture
and for social role of intelligentsia.“ 9 He is conident that “postmodern”
theoreticians/academics are condemned to ontological nostalgia, since
each valuation is always dependent on a view to the past 10 and, at the
same time, that nostalgia is a very potent mode of expression of the
diminishing intellectual elite. „The cultural elite, especially where it has
some pretension to radical politics, is thus caught in a constant paradox
that every expression of critique of the mass culture of capitalist societies
draws it into an elitist position of cultural disdain, refraining from its
enjoyments of the everyday reality...“ 11 Turner sees the acceptance
of objects of mass culture by the elite as pseudo-populism, while
their refusal he sees as a nostalgic denial of current culture. „Since in
8 TURNER, B. S.: A note on nostalgia. In Theory, Culture & Society, 1987, Vol. 4,
No. 1, p. 154.
9 TURNER, B. S.: Orientalism, postmodernism and globalism. London, New
York : Routledge, 2003, p. 130. [online]. [2015-01-10]. Available at: .
10 TURNER, B. S.: Orientalism, postmodernism and globalism. London, New
York : Routledge, 2003, p. 118. [online]. [2015-01-10]. Available at: . We cannot agree with Turner’s
notion, as we do not think that each valuation of the past has to necessarily
have positive connotations and thus being labelled nostalgic.
11 TURNER, B. S.: Orientalism, postmodernism and globalism. London, New
York : Routledge, 2003, p. 131. [online]. [2015-01-10]. Available at: .
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