This article explores the implications of postmodernism for feminist media studies. It takes two key tenets of postmodernism which overlap with much work in feminist media studies - the notion of representation as reality and audience resistance. In the context of the metathemes of identity and difference, it argues for a mode of analysis which is integrative and tracks social and ideological relations at every level between cultural production and consumption. The article further suggests that without a universalism of sorts the idea of equality in a fully functioning democratic society is impossible. However, the concept of universalism must be deconstructed so it can be recognized as a contingent historical product. This is referred to as `paradoxical universalism'. For feminist media studies this requires a mode of analysis which does not atomize and treat as separate the different phases of mass communications or individualize our everyday experience of it.
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