This document provides an overview of Jean Baudrillard's media theory and concepts of hyperreality and simulation. Some key points: - Baudrillard was a French sociologist and philosopher known for his analyses of mediation and technological communication. - He introduced concepts such as hyperreality, where reality is replaced by simulations and the distinction between real and simulated collapses. In a hyperreal state, the simulation is more important than the real thing. - Baudrillard analyzed how hyperreality manifests in areas like celebrity culture and violent video games, where some people lose touch with the real world. - He viewed simulation as replacing reality through a four step process, culminating in

1. BAUDRILLARD –
MEDIA THEORY
Mary Medrana

2. Brief biography
◦ Born in 1929 in Paris
◦ He was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator and photographer.
◦ His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism.
◦ His books gathered a wide audience during the 1980s and 90s and in his last years, to an extent, he became
an intellectual celebrity.
◦ Baudrillard was a social theorist and critic best known for his analyses of the modes of mediation and
technological communication.
◦ His writing, though mostly concerned with the way technological process affects social change, covers diverse
subjects – including consumerism, gender relations, and the social understanding of history.

3. Quotes
◦ “Hyperreality – a condition in which ‘reality’ has been replaced by simulacra.”
◦ Simulacra – when a sign loses its relation to reality, it begins to simulate a simulation (the process in which a
representation of something comes to replace the thing which is actually being represented. The
representation then becomes more important than ‘the real thing’)
◦ Hyperreality: division between “real” and simulation has collapsed, therefore an illusion of an object is no
longer possible because the real object is no longer there.
◦ “the very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction...
The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the
hyperreal… which is entirely in simulation.”
◦ “illustion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.”
◦ Simulation is no longer a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without
origin or reality: a hyperreality”

4. Understanding hyperreality
◦ Celebrity culture: celebrities who reach a point at every aspect of their lives is taken care of by someone else
are said to live in a hyperreal world.
◦ They lose the ability to interact with people on a normal level and are cocooned in hyperreality. Normal
people often try to copy this, for example one man who is obsessed with Britney Speares and every aspect of
his life relates to her, he genuinely believes that he lives in the same world as her.
◦ This is a common case in which someone has become more engaged in the hyperreal world than the actual
real world.

5. ◦ Video games: play station games which have a lot of violence in them often have a lot of bad press, the
media believe that people will copy the actions they see in the video game. This actually happens very rarely,
only a small percentage of the people who play the violent video games actually copy the actions which they
see on them.
◦ One prime example is of a man who believed he was in a game and would therefore gain points by carrying
out illegal tasks, the worst crime which he committed was killing his best friend. His argument was that he
had been told to do it, meaning that he genuinely thought he was taking part in the game when in fact it was
real life. This showed that he could no longer distinguish the difference between game play and real life.

6. Circular referentiality
◦ Baudrillard admires the Mobius strip as an image of hyperreality – “it is never ending, it is a product of itself,
it looks like a circle but is not”

7. Simulation
◦ Is the active process of replacement of the real
◦ Whereas dissimulation (pretending) “leaves the principle of reality intact… simulation threatens the
difference between true and false, the real and the imaginary.”

8. simulacrum
◦ A representational image or presence that deceives; the product of simulation usurping reality
◦ A “copy without an original”
◦ Classical example: a false icon for God
◦ Modern example: Disneyland

9. Simulation is a 4 step process of destabilizing
and replacing reality
◦ 1) faithful – the image reflects a profound reality
◦ 2) perversion – the image masks and denatures a profound reality
◦ 3) pretense – the image masks the absence of a profound reality
◦ 4) pure – the image has no relation to any reality whatsoever. It is its own pure simulacrum.