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A Paradigm Shift Caused By The Impact Of Interactive Multimedia Technologies

“We can get a better idea of the implications of Barr’s (Alfred H. Barr Jr.) critical model by seeing it as a paradigm a similar way to that proposed by Thomas S. Kuhn, the historian of science. Kuhn explains change in scientific theory not as a linear series of revolutions but as shifts of paradigms….an existing paradigm comes under stress when it fails to solve or explain fresh problems. A new paradigm becomes dominant when it promises to explain selected and seemingly incompatible examples which the old paradigm cannot. Barr’s view was that the existing paradigm for art history and criticism was under stress because it could not systematically account for modern developments.”
Using examples of ‘text’ an ‘artefacts’ encountered in the module, discuss the signs of stress in the ‘modernist ‘ and ‘Postmodernist ‘ paradigm caused by the impact of interactive multimedia technologies. Does the advent of these technologies call for a ‘paradigm shift’ or is it possible to elaborate and extend Barr’s theoretical model to ‘account for modern developments’.
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Metaphorically we could say that History is a river. As it flows, many small streams meet the river and its direction and volume shift every time a new stream falls into it. The streams are the different epochs which form history and they can also be defined as paradigms. The ‘paradigm’ terminology derived from Thomas L. Kuhn (1972, the structure of scientific revolutions, University of Chicago Press) and this term is been widely used today and has been applied to many different areas. We define paradigm as a set of principles or ideas that unconsciously underlie all our thoughts and actions. Applied to the history of science , Kuhns analysis goes broadly as it follows:
“Science experiences periods of adherence to a given paradigm which may last for some time until the paradigm is overthrown by observations which do not ‘fit’. The period of overthrown is called a paradigm...