Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism
Frederic JamesonFor Jameson, postmodernism is a forced but highly permeating field, given that cultures are formed through mass media ("mass culture").
This so-called mass culture indirectly forces us to shape our
ideologies and brings us under the influence of media culture—a process
that Jameson calls hegemony. This hegemony however has nothing to do with the postcolonial idea of colonization; rather it is a form of hegemony in the postmodern world, where media and capitalism play the most significant role in colonizing people's thoughts and ways of life.
Jameson argues that postmodernism is the age of the end of
traditional ideologies. The ending of traditional ideologies can be seen
through new wave of the aesthetic
productions. He uses architecture and painting as examples. For
instance, he draws out the differences between mindsets of modernism and
postmodernism by comparing Van Gogh's “Peasant Shoes” with Andy Warhol's “Diamond Dust Shoes”.
For Jameson, postmodernism, as mass-culture driven by capitalism,
pervades every aspect of our daily lives. Whether we want it or not, we
imbibe it. This in turn makes it a "popular" culture of the masses.