Simulacra and Simulation - Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist and photographer, focused his works on post-modernism and particularly post-structuralism. He was notoriously known for predicting that the first Gulf war of 1991 would not occur. His best work is the analysis of the modes of mediation and technological communication. These social issues include consumerism, gender relations and other social and political agendas. His ideas focuses around how social relations are determined by communication that society employs. His 1985 book "Simulacra and Simulation" is a discussion on symbols and signs, Baudrillard believed that our current society has replaced all our reality with these symbols and signs and the human experience is a simulation of reality. According to Baudrillard 'Simulation' is a hyper reality. The concept of Simulacra questions the concept of reality and how we understand it, He argues that today, there is no such thing as reality. An example he gave of this, is the production of nuclear weapons, he considered it a Simulacrum because essentially the weapons are only there as a reproducible and never meant to be used. Baudrillard's concepts of blurred boundaries between reality and simulation can relate to the media's influence on our society, and the human experience and how we communicate is through the media, effecting how we communicate through the use of various media products.