Editing Hyperreality (section)

== Origins and usage ==
The postmodern semiotic concept of hyperreality was contentiously coined by Baudrillard in ''[[Simulacra and Simulation]]'' (1981).<ref>{{Cite book |title=Minding Dolls: An Exercise in Archetype and Ideal |last=Pavlik-Malone |first=Lisa |date=2018 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=9781527511583 |location=Newcastle upon Tyne |pages=35}}</ref> Baudrillard defined "hyperreality" as "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality";<ref>{{cite book |last=Baudrillard |first=Jean |title=Simulacra & Simulation |year=1994 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |location=The Precession of Simulacra |page=1 |url=https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/baudrillard-simulacra_and_simulation.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309115319/https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/baudrillard-simulacra_and_simulation.pdf |archive-date=2012-03-09}}</ref> and his earlier book ''Symbolic Exchange and Death''. Hyperreality is a representation, a sign, without an original referent. According to Baudrillard, the commodities in this theoretical state do not have [[Use value|use-value]] as defined by [[Karl Marx]] but can be understood as [[Signified and signifier|signs]] as defined by [[Ferdinand de Saussure]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Postmodernism |last1=Taylor |first1=Victor E. |last2=Winquist |first2=Charles E. |date=2003 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0415152941 |location=London |pages=183}}</ref> He believes hyperreality goes further than confusing or blending the 'real' with the symbol which represents it; it involves creating a symbol or set of signifiers which represent something that does not actually exist, like Santa Claus. Baudrillard borrows, from [[Jorge Luis Borges]]' "[[On Exactitude in Science]]" (already borrowed from [[Lewis Carroll]]), the example of a society whose [[Cartography|cartographers]] create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was [[Map–territory relation|designed to represent]]. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=Sound in Motion: Cinema, Videogames, Technology and Audiences |last=Encabo |first=Enrique |date=2018 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1527508743 |location=Newcastle upon Tyne |pages=17}}</ref> He says that, in such a case, neither the representation nor the real remains, just the hyperreal.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]], [[semiotics]], and the philosophy of [[Marshall McLuhan]]. Baudrillard, however, challenges McLuhan's famous statement that "[[the medium is the message]]," by suggesting that information devours its own content. He also suggested that there is a difference between the media and reality and what they represent.<ref name=":0" /> Hyperreality is the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced societies.<ref>Zompetti, J. P., & Moffitt, M. A. (2008). Revisiting Concepts of Public Relations Audience Through Postmodern Concepts of Metanarrative, Decentered Subject, and Reality/Hyperreality. Journal of Promotion Management, 14(3/4), 275–291. doi:10.1080/10496490802623762.</ref> However, Baudrillard's hyperreality theory goes a step further than McLuhan's medium theory: "There is not only an implosion of the message in the medium, there is, in the same movement, the implosion of the medium itself in the real, the implosion of the medium and of the real in a sort of hyperreal nebula, in which even the definition and distinct action of the medium can no longer be determined".<ref name="Laughey, D. 2010">{{cite book |last=Laughey |first=Dan |date=2010 |title=Key themes in media theory |location=Maidenhead |publisher=[[Open University Press]] |pages=148–149}}</ref>

Italian author [[Umberto Eco]] explores the notion of hyperreality further by suggesting that the action of hyperreality is to desire reality and in the attempt to achieve that desire, to fabricate a false reality that is to be consumed as real.{{sfn|Eco|1986}} Linked to contemporary [[western culture]], Umberto Eco and [[Post-structuralism|post-structuralists]] would argue that in current cultures, fundamental ideals are built on desire and particular [[Sign system|sign-systems]]. Temenuga Trifonova from [[University of California, San Diego]] notes,
{{blockquote|[...]it is important to consider Baudrillard's texts as articulating an [[ontology]] rather than an [[epistemology]].<ref>{{citation |first=Temenuga |last=Trifonova |date=2003 |url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.503/13.3trifonova.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204171117/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.503/13.3trifonova.html |title=Is There a Subject in Hyperreality? |archive-date=4 December 2021 |website=Postmodern Culture}}</ref>}}