e notions that were at best only hinted at in modernism. One such notion is the commercialization of art and life. Another is the mixture or blending of elite and popular culture. Within postmodernism, distinctions between high and low culture have largely been abandoned. Furthermore a transformation in the concept of the individual also appears to have taken place in postmodernism. The very concept of self appears to have been largely liquidated. What one is accustomed to designate as an "individual" is now seen as only a multiplicity of forces, desires and bodily flows. It does not seem accidental, therefore, that so many of the postmodern views of self closely mirror concepts of the self encouraged by advertising and the prevailing commodity culture. The consumer is seen as scattered, disconnected, interchangeable, and ephemeral, a subject that is eager to become other than that which he or she already is. And in the arena of politics the active citizen has apparently almost disappeared.
Television, Image, and National Politics
The prominent role of the image in postmodern society seems particularly striking when analyzing televised electoral politics (Poster, 1990). Television has become the primary network through which communication techniques are used to exert influence over others. T.V. campaigning on a national level has largely displaced formal political parties as channels of personal identity. In addition, with television, candidates can work outside the traditional parties, substituting their TV charisma for "real" charisma (Baudrillard, 1983).
Historically in the United States, war heroes or revolutionary figures had real charisma. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower became candidates on the basis of their extraordinary political stature or military heroism. Today charisma seems largely manufactured through marketing techniques.
In the 1984 campaign, for...