Postmodern media is the idea that anything can interpreted and valued equally; nothing can be judged as negative since anything can be art. It is a rejection of Modernism which focuses on moving forward and hiding references to the past in its media products.
Ted is an example of how boundaries between reality and representation are transgressed. The film's protagonist Ted is an animated children's toy living in the 'real' world. His soaring popularity lead to him appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Show Live, which is postmodern because the live aspect means that the audience were merely cheering a voice over when it was being filmed and Ted was edited in afterwards for the purposes of Television. Ted then went on to appear at the Oscars and present an award, this is blurring the boundary between reality and representation as a fictional character is presenting an acting award, again the audience would have been cheering a voice over. These appearances link to Baudrillard's concept of hyper-reality and how things that should seem abnormal, like a non-existent talking teddy bear walking around, are considered completely normal and nobody questions it.
'Scott Pilgrim Vs The World' is another postmodern media text that looks at the blurring of boundaries between reality and representation. In the film there is 'narrastive truth' as comic, computer games and TV are all treated equally; thereby leading to the concept of pluralism. The low culture genres such as comic books and sitcom are being treated with the same reverence as high culture genres such as philosophy and time and space. Blurring these elements together create a diegetic world as when Scott fights the exes, he gets points and power-ups that appear on screen, replicating that of a video-game. Levi Strauss' theory of substitution can be applied here because realistic life situations are being replaced with exaggerated comic book ones; making the fictional elements of Scott's life indistinguishable from the non-fictional.
However, one could look at the online computer game 'Desert Bus' and argue that postmodern media does not blur the boundary between reality and representation. This game mimics real time rather than attempt to distort it and in doing so, creates a realistic simulation of the 'real' world. However, Jameson's argument that postmodernism is depthless could be applied to this game because it has no purpose; there are no goals to strive for and although the game provides a temporary means of escape, it does not provide any advancement in the real world.
The Nikon camera advert could be argued to blur the boundaries between reality and representation because it sells people a life style that doesn't exist. The company comment that they aim to 'remind' their audience that they are 'at the heart of the image' yet the question remains, how can people be reminded of experiences they've never had. This advert is conforming to Baudrillards concept of hyper reality and how the real world is created on expectations and how people want it to be rather than how it actually is. Nikon is merely projecting aspirational lifestyles out to its viewers that they will apparently gain with the purchase of the camera. This misleading advertising techniques is used also with Smirnoff and Emmirate Airlines; this could also be considered simularcra because the companies aim to sell 'unique' experiences to the audience yet if everyone gets the same experience with the camera then this cannot be possible.
With the constant availability of the Internet, reality and representation are frequently blurred and transgressed all the time. The invention of Google glasses means that people are living in a hyper real world from day to day thereby causing the real world to be indistinguishable from fictional lifestyles.
