Modernism began mid-19th Century and lasted through to the late 1970s. It was a sustained period of industrial, scientific and artistic innovation which greatly affected cultural texts - rationalism was a relevant theme, as was the belief in a historical metanarrative.

Postmodernism is a term that dates roughly from the 1980s to the present. It refers to the era beyond modernism - the time we are living in now, which is still under definitional debate. There are three different ways to view the concept of postmodernism:
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• a term for "after" modernism.
• a term for "anti" modernism.
• a term for "hyper" modernism.

Probably the simplest possible definition of postmodernism is literal and self-explanatory: the time period after modernism. 

After the 1980s, an increase in globalisation (cross-border work and hybridity) gave rise to what we can call post-internet culture. Technological advancements have led to experimentation with personal identity, and thus the creation of individual micronarratives - less and less are we able to place ourselves in that grand metanarrative championed by the modernist era.

Another feature of postmodernism is the rise in post-truth culture. Unlike the widespread rationalist views of the modernist era, today's society has a certain distrust for fact and expertise. Seeing truth as contested and non-absolute instead, this culture has given rise to conspiracy theories and the advocation of authenticity.

Another way to view postmodernism is as a reaction to the failures of modernism. 

In contrast to modernist rationalism and truth, postmodernism has iconoclastic values - it rejects and subverts these ideals, favouring experimentalism and anti-foundational views. We now freely question the ideological bias of known fact and history, sceptical of the modernist schemes society once followed. The concept of truth is rejected for the idea that certainty cannot be obtained, and we reject those rules modernism had previously placed upon us.

​The idea behind hyper-modernism is that postmodernism is simply an accelerated version of modernism.

In this sense, we are seeing a continuation of the modernist narrative; a belief that culture is cyclical, and never complete.

​Postmodernist features in visual culture include:

• the merging of high/low cultural forms: elitist texts existing alongside the mainstream and mass produced.
• mutations in public space: hybrid-cultural areas that don't fit into the narrative.
• 'the unstable image': the idea that images are no longer true representations - degradation, manipulation and presentation of an image that obscures its reality and meaning (see 'order of simulacra*').
• 'society of the spectacle': increased mediation - living life through a screen, with simulation as the new reality.

​Modernism: a sustained period of industrial, scientific and artistic innovation throughout mid 19th Century - late 1970s.

Postmodernism: the current era which succeeded modernism - can be defined as after, anti or hyper modernism.

Rationalism: the philosophical view that knowledge is acquired through factual reason.

Post-Internet culture: a societal movement following the expansion of the Internet.

Post-Truth culture: a societal movement challenging rationalist views.

Metanarrative: a grand, overarching interpretation of history, interconnecting points in structural form.

Micronarrative: a narrative personal to the individual, and unable to be placed within a metanarrative.

​*Order of simulacra: Jean Baudrillard's stage concept (1981):
 - stage 1: reflects base reality.
 - stage 2: masks/perverts reality.
 - stage 3: the absence of basic reality.
 - stage 4: no relation to any reality.

​Globalisation refers to the operation of organisations on an international scale. This involves different cultures worldwide developing connections and working in liaison, largely for economic purposes.

Considering the themes of globalisation, we must talk about The Global Village phenomenon - that is, the growing worldwide interconnection facilitated by technological/communicational advancements.

In the modern age, we are now able to connect with others on a global scale. This allows us to form a sort of worldwide community (or 'village) via digital platform, which has been in turn paved the way for a number of changes:
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• Cultural exchange: the mixing of cultures and creation of a global creative community, resulting in hybridised texts.

• Problem solving as a planet: the ability to communicate, share and enable plans to tackle global issues (pandemics, climate change, etc).
• Cultural imperialism: the disproportionate effect of one culture over another.
• Post-Traditional community: the economic and technological impact on community relations (transient connection, changes in spatial environment, digital integration, etc.)

Note that although globalisation has catered for huge advancements, the impacts are not all positive.

Globalisation has also made cross-border trade possible. The growth of global economics since the 1980s has facilitated changes such as:

• Global brands: the creation and promotion of worldwide brands and transient corporations.
• Breakdown of trade barriers: national borders and ideologies are now less relevant.
  
• Economical shifts: movement in the west from manufacturing to service-based industries.
  

​A global corporation is a company that operates in many countries worldwide. The growth of such corporations can be traced back to the 1980s, with marked movement from production to branding. According to Naomi Klein in her book 'No Logo', 1999, global corporations can be characterised by the following attributes:

• they are immortal: they have accumulated power and wealth, and great influential power.
• they are ephemeral: they can change operation quickly (eg. wages, tax, etc).
• they are aggressively competitive: they are driven by profit and growth.
• they are chameleonlike: they change their ideologies to suit location.

Klein also discusses the corporate brand as a company identity and logo, spread throughout advertising (including celebrity endorsement, product placement, sponsorships, etc). She notes in particular the growth of fashion franchise and high-concept advertisement since the mid-80s. However, there are hidden negatives behind the face of corporate branding:

• process concealment: the production process is hidden.
• outsourced manufacture: the exploitation of others, particularly developing countries, for cheap labour and manufacture.
• minimal labour costs: non-unionised labour and sweatshop employment.
  
• export processing zones: ​corporate enclaves and tax breaks with no benefit for local economy.
  

Activist opposition to the above is known as the anti-corporate movement. This movement has grown since the 1990s, raising awareness and promoting anti-consumerism with the use of social media and digital forums (see the 'Adbusters' for reference).

It is, effectively, the use of design as a weapon of propaganda, subversion and culture jamming.

​Anti-corporate activists use a range of creative resistance strategies such as brandalism, detournement/subversion and interventions to oppose corporate branding. They also challenge it by engaging in ethical and sustainable practice (see the 'First Things First 2000 Manifesto' ​for reference).

Mau Mau is a British graffiti artist who uses his work as a means of ethical activism. With his token fox character, he protests issues such as consumerism, corporate branding and climate change in his artwork. As well as his own personal projects, he has produced activist work for many organisations, including Greenpeace.

Mau Mau's artwork has appeared on everything from walls to shipwrecks all around the world. Below are examples of his activist street art:

The concept of gender roles in society changes over time with the evolution of culture; their definitions are specific to time and place. ​With ​gender identity and representation explored and reflected on more openly now in the media, many debates have risen:

• Gender & Power Structures (cultural patriarchy, the male/female gaze)
• Gender as an Identity Base
• Essentialism v. Structuralism (inherent or learned?)
• Gender Behaviour & Performance (socio-historic conditioning, cultural anchors, reiteration -> sedimentation -> perpetuation)
• Societal Attitude to Gender
• Representation & Cultural Ideals (societal expectations of male and female bodies)
• Gender/Consumerism Relationship

Of course, with gender being a social construct as opposed to a natural property, these debates root in society itself. In today's day and age  they are most prominent in the media, where cultural ideals and gender norms can be openly discussed and challenged.

'Gender Advertisements' is an analytical work by Erving Goffman, considering and discussing gender representation in 60s-70s adverts.

Goffman notes that this era of advertisement maintains strong running themes:

• Binary gender representation: it was very much 'masculine male' and 'feminine female' - there was no mention or consideration for trans, non-binary or genderqueer identities.​

 

• The gendered body: there were very clear cultural ideals and expectations for both male and female bodies. Where men were portrayed as active and forceful, women were seen as passive and yielding - women were branded as more emotional than men, with weaker strength but greater tactility. 

 

• Gender roles & power dynamics: men were the 'breadwinners' and women were 'housewives', often seen in formal and homely attire respectfully - this heavily reinforced the patriarchal power structure.

 

• The subordination of women: women were seen as below men - objects to surveyed, wives to serve their assertive husbands.

Though many aspects of society's views on gender are still troublesome, it is clear we have come a long way in just a few decades.

Style magazines are hotspots for gender-based debate and exploration. Their content directly reflects cultural changes towards sexuality and gender, producing a response to society's ever-changing views.

They link gender identity to consumerism by targeting specific audiences, exploiting different 'tricks' to do so. For example, it is not uncommon for a style magazine to address the reader informally and directly; inclusive terms such as "we"/"our"/"you"/"your" recognise the reader as 'part of the group', enticing them with an inclusive vibe. The use of celebrities as role models of success is also a huge tool for the promotion of both products and cultural ideals.

On one hand, you could say style magazines have a negative effect on society's gender views; that they encourage backwards thinking. They can include unrealistic role models, wrongly pressuring people to conform to a certain gender or body ideal - in this sense especially, many magazines still have a firmly heterosexual/cisgender outlook which excludes non-binary gender identities. Many would also argue that patriarchal power structures are still reinforced in style magazines.

On the other hand, you could view style magazines as engaging postmodern texts; works of humour, emotion and self-consciousness that encourage readers to relate, explore and discuss their views on gender identity. Readers can find a sense of community and comfort in this relation, and build confidence and pride in their identities. 

In the 1975 paper 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', Mulvey presents the concept of The Male Gaze. This theory suggests that in the media, women are viewed from the perspective of a heterosexual man as passive objects of male desire.

To explore this, Mulvey uses the world of narrative cinema as an example. She notes that in films of that time period, the protagonist was almost always a cisgender, heterosexual male. Through camerawork, acting and design, he was portrayed as a powerful character - an often egotistical individual with the active means to command the stage and control the plot.

At the other end of the spectrum, women were portrayed as passive characters - objects to be displayed, viewed and owned. Female protagonists were rare, and women tended to play the roles of love interests or erotic distractions (in other words, they were virtually irrelevant to the plot without connection to the male protagonist).

Mulvey notes that the camerawork in these films is significantly different when filming the female figure. The paper points to three perspectives in filmmaking; camera perspective, character perspective and audience perspective. Unlike the filming of men, the filming of women involves heavy focus on typically-feminine aspects of the body - this emphasises the use of women in cinema as erotic leitmotifs (eg. pin-ups, strip-tease, etc).

To conclude, Mulvey's paper points out the voyeuristic, scopophilic instinct of the male gaze in narrative cinema, and the portrayal of the female figure as a passive object of male pleasure and erotic impact.

​The term subculture can be traced as far back as the 1800s. Then, they were referred to as 'deviant groups' or 'urban underclasses'. Nowadays, the term subculture largely refers to post-1945 youth groups.

Note the prefix 'sub', as in subordinate or subterranean, to signify a lower position - subcultures are groups that have split from or rebelled against a pre-existing parent culture.

Mainstream culture itself, as mentioned, can also be referred to as 'parent', 'official' or 'dominant' culture. It is the cultural normalising and promotion of popular and socially-acceptable texts ("cultural norms"), and can therefore only function via broad consensus.

Though mostly widespread in media, mainstream culture is essentially everywhere - institutions and workplaces, consumer culture, economics and bureaucracy, even authorities and the government. It is easily accessible, and easily spread (one could argue subculture must be 'sought out', whereas the mainstream is readily visible and available).

It is from the mainstream that subculture splits, forging its own path as a stream of minority. That being said, the lifespan of said stream is not guaranteed; subculture tends to follow a cyclical pattern.

Thinking of culture as a matter of consensus, subculture can be seen as a rebellion against mainstream ideas. Followers may disagree or refuse to go along with them, instead choosing to subvert, disrupt or parody. This 'rebel group' splitting from its parent culture is the birth of a subculture.

​In 1950s America, The Beats were a literary subculture; a group of writers who could be considered as subcultural 'elite' (mostly young, white males from moneyed, middle class backgrounds).

The subculture's name, as in 'beaten', signifies its estrangement from the mainstream. They were iconoclastic; challenging the dominant cultural values of the 1950s (which they referred to as "square values") including deferred gratification, planned future, the '9-5 job' and 'family unit' ideals, fatalism, materialism and consumerism.
​

​Below are some of The Beats' main themes and values:

• Countercultural: rejecting 1950s standards, materialism, and consumerism.
• Anti-military: against the Cold War.
• Anti-censorship: morally liberal attitudes towards sex, gender, relationships and drugs - the right to and promotion of experimentation.
• Spirituality: in a non-Western, non-Christian sense.
• Hedonism: believing in the importance of pleasure and self-indulgence, and the personal enlightenment it can bring - against deferred gratification.
• Autonomy: the right to govern yourself and your life, and the right to spontaneity as opposed to a planned, fatalist future.
• ​Non-conformity: rejecting cultural norms like the '9-5 job', defined 'gender roles' and the stereotypical 'family unit'.​

Eventually, vilification of the subculture (eg. the 'Beatnik' caricature - Lipton, 1959), led to mockery of The Beats. They were reframed by the mainstream as dangerous and morally suspect. Despite this, they were later to re-emerge in hipster culture.

Although the music genre rooted shortly before in 1960s America, the punk subculture of the 1970s was largely established in Britain. Nowadays some of us may only associate the term 'punk' with the music genre or the subculture itself, but official definitions include:

- "a worthless person"
- "a criminal or troublemaker"
- "a prostitute"
- "a homosexual"
- "an inexperienced young person"
- "in poor condition". 

It is interesting to keep these definitions in mind when thinking of the relationship between punk and mainstream. As another non-conforming, countercultural group against elitism and establishment, it is most certain they were met with disapproving eyes in the parent culture.

​Some of the main ideologies of punk subculture include:
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• Authenticity: amateurism as a virtue - not "selling out".
• Anti-corporate/Anti-elitism: the demystification of mainstream ideologies.
• Non-conformity: the right to self-expression and autonomy.​
• Urban/suburban decay: a rebellion against the social and economic conditions of 1970s Britain.
• Nihilism/Anarchy: nihilistic views, particularly in early punk.

The subculture voiced its views through a distinctive DIY ethic and the development of a visual lexicon. 

• Music: fast-paced and hard edge, often self-produced and distributed through independent labels (particular spotlight on 'The Sex Pistols').
• Art/Design: use of collage/photomontage, stencil lettering and Letraset, ransom note style (particular spotlight on album covers, and the influential 'punk-defining' art of Jamie Reid).
• Underground press & zines: often crudely produced and cheaply printed (xerography), but well composed.
• Fashion & punk dress code: sexualised shock imagery, cross-dressing, collage/bricolage (the safety pin as a punk symbol), and subversion of loaded cultural signs - purposefully designed to offend and provoke the mainstream.

The punk movement used detournement; a technique adapted by the situationist SI, it sought to subvert and 'ape' mainstream culture via alteration and appropriation.

As noted by Hebdige, following the rise and peak of a subculture, there comes a point when it begins to be absorbed into the mainstream. The subcultural elite loses the upper hand as it becomes common mainstream knowledge - it is either popularised and commercialised, co-opted and copied, vilified and parodied... Until possible re-emergence at a later date, the subculture is re-asserted by the mainstream.

​The International Bear Brotherhood ​is a subculture within LGBTQ+, characterised mainly by its community; gay men of a typically larger, hairier stature.

​The subculture emerged in the mid 1980s, when many homosexual men felt invalidated by the effeminate stereotype both in and outwith their community. In response to this, bear culture emerged as an identity term and affiliation for gay men who presented 'rugged masculinity'. Now recognised worldwide, it has developed a specific visual culture of its own.
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Bear culture has a specific visual identity and dress code. Gay men who identify as bears typically present with:

• a larger stature: this could refer to height, weight, muscularity or general build.
• hirsuteness: bears almost always have facial and body hair.
• 'rugged masculinity': a key traditional aspect of bear culture challenging the effeminate stereotype of gay men.
• specific clothing: bear culture often features shirtless fashion to show off body hair and physique; other commonly-worn items include leather, studded leather, body harnesses, biker jackets, etc.

Bear culture presentation and fashion is seen and celebrated at community gatherings and events. Examples include local 'bear club' meetings, 'Bear Hug' parties, marches and festivals, Prides, and international competitions such as International Mr Bear.

The inclusivity of bear culture is hotly debated. Some bears exclude or even actively shun effeminate gay men, whereas other members of the community are accepting of all presentations. In many cases, bear culture has evolved to be inclusive of trans men and butch-presenting lesbians.

Arguably the most iconic visual of bear culture is its flag. Now recognised as the subculture's official symbol within the LGBTQ+ community, it is comprised of a bear paw silhouette atop seven strips of colour (black, grey, white, beige, yellow, red and brown - representing the fur colours of different bear species). The flag and the bear paw symbol are widely used in Bear Pride merchandise, such as t-shirts, badges and sashes.

The subculture also holds its own genre in media; the community produces a range of magazines (such as those shown below), music, and adult content.