Simulacra and Simulation

For a number of sociologists, media theorists, and social critics, the current era, with its global market, advanced technologies, mass media and digital information, and the all‐present marketing of goods and politics, must be seen as radically different from the industrial age of machine‐based mass production. One of the central technological innovations of the industrial era was the capturing of visual images, sounds, and later media with both sound and picture. From the earliest photos, to records, and later movies and television, we have seen and heard endless reproductions. But, today, many argue that we live in a “postmodern” age dominated by an endless number of spectacular images, most of which are simulations, copies without an original source, imitations where the original never existed. With the proliferation of simulations, created images serve less to reproduce the reality that was seen or heard than to create various images that in turn create a new “reality” and new kinds of meanings. The “reality” of today, a world of fantastic dreams and images, is said to be largely a product of advertisers, marketers, and political consultants. They are the ones who create and disseminate the spectacles and simulations of “hyperreality.” At some point in the late twentieth century, the prevalence of artificial images, staged events, and socially constructed “realities” had become so prevalent as to be considered “normal,” “natural,” and hardly worth more than a yawn. In retrospect, we might now call our times the age of simulation.