Within normal limits

Abstract

It is my idea that man is conditioned by his environment and that ''environment'' for contemporary man is the mass media network. We are conditioned more by television than nature. The mass media network of television, radio, magazines, books and newspapers is our environ- ment, a service of environment that carries the messages of the social organism. It establishes meaning of life, creates mediating channels between man and man, man and society. The subject of my thesis project is to show the cultural effects of the mass media network in the postmodern age. I wanted to concent- rate on three central postmodern theories about mass media. First, television as a serial culture; second, television as a postmodern technology; third, entertainment as the dominant ideology of TV cul- ture. I have always been interested in Surrealism. After taking ''Dada and Surrealism'' and ''Film history and Criticism'' courses at RIT, I felt confident I would be able to combine surrealist film language and postmodern theories in my thesis project.