Right...but what about "real" life?
But how are these theories relevant to so-called "real" life? The occasion of the modernism-postmodernism debate is technological change, and particularly the effects on art, literature, and identity of the development of an information society. How does technological change affect a sense of self? Nick Gillespie, writing from what might broadly be seen as a modernist point of view, explains that the current profusion of communications media provides an excellent environment for the individual's continuing exercise in self-invention. Far from simply absorbing and acting upon the messages broadcast to it through an inescapable system of signs, the "audience has a mind of its own. Individuals sitting in a theater, or watching television, or listening to a CD don't always see and hear things the way they're 'supposed' to" (Gillespie). In a society where information itself is a commodity, and perhaps the most valuable commodity there is, "the most relevant interpretive context is not the producer's but the consumer's" (Gillespie).The significance of this argument lies in its optimism regarding the potential of technology to help us build positive, healthy relationships while continually exploring and redefining who we are as human beings. Technology, in this modern sensibility, is not a threat to our own uniqueness and inner "treasure chest," but rather a means by which to further differentiate each individual self--to enlarge our treasure chests and fill them with the unique ways in which we alone innovate and invent new possibilities for living within a technology-driven environment. Once internalized, the media becomes fuel for the individual's ongoing process of creative self-invention.
Gillespie, Nick. "View Masters." Reason Feb. 1996. 18 November 2002 http://reason.com/9602/NICKtv.feb96.shtml.