Simulacrum

Simulacrum (plural simulacra) is a perspective on how communicators represent the world. One of the first scholars to discuss this approach was the French cultural theorist and sociologist Jean Baudrillard, who suggested that, given mass marketing, mass media, and commodification, the way people, places, and things are presented to audiences no longer has a connection to the real in the world. Rather, abstracted and highly sensationalized versions of reality, via mass media and ancillary services such as advertising and public relations, come to stand in for what was once actual experience with an object, place, song, artwork, or other experience. This entry focuses on the history of this view, major thinkers who have considered the topic, and concludes with examples of its application.