Jean Baudrillard's Theory of Postmodern Semiotics

Jean Baudrillard defies easy classification. Many observers classify him as a social scientist. He does not, however, remain comfortably in the narrow field of sociology as we know it in the American sense of the term. As a product of broad-based and wide-ranging training of the French academic tradition, he is more than just a sociologist. Even his academic career reflects his ever-changing interests in academic pursuits. He has become a very important and influential figure in recent disussions of postmodernism on the international scene. He has not, however, begun his academic career as a postmodernist. He started as a Neo-Marxist, but he had to break away from Marxism after staging frontal attacks on its basic theoretical assumptions in the 1970's. He, then, embraced postmodernism as an alternative to his hitherto cherished Marxism. Baudrillard's importance as postmodern theorist is amply evidenced in his many writings. His main concern in his writings has been focused on mass culture and technologies of mass reproduction in postmodern times. He proposes in his writings that what is important in the post-industrial age is not the use value of a product but its exchange value. He points out that the exchange value is created by the images and symbols certain products conjure up. His theories about exchange value have naturally led him to argue for the falseness of reality as we know it. This kind of false reality is very well corroborated by ads, especially on T.Y. He calls this falseness of reality "hyperreality" and proposes that "hyperrality" is not a representation of reality (the basic postmodern tenet holds that reality can not be representable any more), but it (hyperreality) is reality itself. Even though Baudrillard's theory of postmodern semiotics may sound too far-out, his insights provide us with a very convenient handle in dealing with the postmodern situations