Dissertation Seminar; Design & Consumerism

When filling in the form; have the title vague like 'Brand Theory'

Questionnaires - produce great data but they are hard to do well, unless you send it out to 100's of people and the questions are well thought out.

Try read the original text rather than a book about the writer.

Dont be afraid of picking something that is really niche and feel you wont have enough research for it.

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Concepts

Brand Theory
Anti - Capitalist Movement
How to successful brands operate; how does a really manipulative advert actually work technically
Communication Theory
Superbrand
Branding Theory
Anti Branding Theory
Consumer Culture
Conspicuous Consumption - buying into brands, so others can see we are buying into things
Trickel Down theory


Questions...

'How is a super brand constructructed' e.g. Apple, the aura and how it is constructed on various different levels. How the stores are laid out to construct the experience of a brand.
This could link to anti-capitalist theories and also look at how the brand works in a social context.

Think about; how does consumerism work as a social function

If you were to look at a super brand, you could talk about all of the information that is mentioned on this page and ask the questions of your chosen case study.

Designer as a wage labourer - you may have to take on work that you are not happy with. How does the designer negotiate the problems that operate in a consumer society.

Is social status deciphered by brands

How would you picture a society with out brands

Pick a product and talk about the advertising and branding behind it e.g. perfume

Comparison between different levels of brand and how they work as a visual language

Celebrity endorsements -

Commodity fetishism - symbolic value - branding - commodity value - social value and then look at a couple of case studies.


Books

No Loko - Naomi Klein - very political view of brands.
On Brand - Wally Olins
Conspicious Consumption - T. Vebien


Documentary

Adam Curtis - 'Century of the 'Self' - Marx, Freud - American mass consumerism from the moment after the First world war. The governments in the west were concerned with mass movements e.g. fascism - there were revolutions across Europe. The American government felt the best way was to instil in them they could achieve personal freedom through mass consumption. They used Freud's theory - to pacify and control the masses. (consumerism is a pacifying device) - what is the designers role in this


Theorists

Marx
Freud
Bernays
Baudrillard - symbolic value of the commodity

Dissertation Seminar - Design for Social Change

Aiming for 8000 words that is broken into 4 chapters (plus intro and conclusion), the chapters will be about 1,500 words each.

Think of a topic that you can have 4 separate angles on the topic - 4 things to investigate within the theme,  try and highlight what these themes and angles will be in the proposal.

Methodology - a coherent approach

e.g. semiotics / psychoanalytical / communication theory / narratology / feminist / Marxist
Without one of these then the dissertation will get jumbled, Outlined explicitly at the start, number 2 will be more focused.
It is acceptable to blend the methodologies
Have a theoretical approach

The dissertation needs to have Primary research to be able to get a first.

Examples of primary research;

• interviews with designers / peers / professionals
• anything that you analyse / art objects / logos / indent etc - and interpretations of academic text (Foucault)
• empirical study - some type of experiment that you set up yourself
• archival research

Secondary Sources - start off with these. Need to find as many secondary sources about the topic as you can, you then need to look at where your primary research will come from that. Chose some chapters from the book - 4 chapters. 

• book about
• topic
• approach
• primary research

Design for social change - key things

Design activism - design that wants to be political, design that wants to change

Baldin's 'Visual Communication from theory to practice' - they make the argument that all design is political. It is political because design always supports one side or the argument. 

Relations of production

Dialectical Materialism

All society is based on a base (forces of production and relations of production - the balance of power) and a superstructure

Materialists argue that all forms of art, design, etc is produced out of this and reflects the relations of production (balance of power)

e.g. patriarcle society where men mainly have control over the mass media. So the type of things produced by the mass medial reflect the dominance of men over women e.g. naked woman on page 3, and in films women take the role of the beauty or the prise for the men to catch. Once these images get produced and reproduced then people start to believe this is how it has always been. This can be applied to class, race, sexuality, eco politics. 

If you want to make a change you can to work out how to intervene this social pattern / circle

IDEOLOGY - key but sticky concept that has all sorts of different meanings, get a critical definition of this

- political programme

- false consciousness

Marxist theory of this is; a system of believes that becomes naturalised and then it seems that the ideas become that of the whole society. They eventually cements itself as the culture of everyone. It creates a fall way of thinking about the world. 

'Naomi Klein - No Logo' - directly led to the occupy movement - 'we are the 99%' - slogan, it immediately reminds people of their position in the base. Before this people had no idea of social class and that the top 1% of the world owned the % of the world. 

Ad busters & Culture Jamming

Need a solid understanding of the AUDIENCE - any design that seeks to make an impact in the world has to be AUDIENCE focused rather than Design focused. 

Audience Theory - deals with issues of mass, reception

* You could have a historical chapter, the one of what was the ideology at that time, then one of the communication theory, and communicate to a mass audience, then the final chapter could be a case study. 

Subculture / Culture - work out the difference between these (culture = dominant) culture is produced by the dominant factors of the relations of production, and subculture is created by the repressed factors of the relations of production. 

Once the culture becomes dominant the subculture becomes irrelevant, the only time this culture / subculture cycle is broken is when the subculture dominates over the culture. 

Victor Papanek - Design for the Real World' - he came up with the idea of the social teeth (10%)

What I need to do, nail down the theme then do the literature search. 

Dissertation Ideas

Continue essay on branding and the social effects it has. Chose and contrast larger brands and how they have dominated and shaped our society, what is involved in societies behaviour.

The influence of advertising and how it dominates our society. 

Advertising - advertising does influence the way we think and feel (just like all of mass media does), but this isn't because they are trying to exploit or manipuate people, advertisers are people of an already exploitative society. 

There is a level of persuasion - the way they do this is not the fault of advertisers it is the fault of already   created culture. 

Ad busters - culture jams - they have just created another brand / to hold onto. They have branded themselves in a way to buy into the branding consumerism. 

Essay Final Version

DISCUSS HOW PRODUCTS HAVE BECOME SUCCESSFUL THROUGH THE TECHNIQUES AND MANIPULATION OF BRANDING

Today we live in a branded culture; any business that wants to succeed needs to have strong branding as people buy into brands not products.

“The brand has become so significant a phenomenon of our time that it is almost impossible to express any ideas, or even delineate personalities without branding them.”

(Olins, 2003, p.23)

It is evident from this quote that branding has developed to a point where anything can be branded. It used to be constricted to just basic everyday products like soap, and the brand represented its price and content. Today customers now look for a deeper meaning behind the brand, and to learn more about the company behind it. Further more, today a brand is about representing images of certain lifestyles, these become tools that we can use to define ourselves by. ‘Branding has shifted from being simply about the identity creation to a period of attempting to emotionally connect with audiences.’(Davis, 2009, p.20) To connect with the audience, the brands aims to appeal to the customer’s emotions, relating customers to the brand and see the social and cultural difference the brand will make. This shift has given the opportunities to exploit branding methods and manipulate customers into connecting to the brand; this is referred to as ‘cultural and emotional branding’. (Holt, 2004, p.13) The brand name ‘Vitamin Waters’ gives customers the idea that this product is healthy, and part of a healthy diet just because of the word ‘Vitamin.’ People will look and read deeper into this brand name and associate it with a healthier and potentially happier lifestyle, if they purchase this drink.

Brands today are incredibly powerful; their strength has influenced who we are and how we live our lives today. Our society is dominated by a few large brands such as Coca Cola, Nike and Adidas. These perform like cultural activists by “encouraging people to think differently about themselves”. (Holt, 2004, p.9) TV programs are an example of cultural branding as different brands develop in different social classes as people rely on these to “express their identity” (Holt, 2004, p.5) Emotional branding is described as a “deep interpersonal connection.” (Holt, 2004, p.14) A connection someone makes with another person or object has harder to break, especially when he or she are made to believe that they will benefit personally, socially and culturally.

“Branding these days is largely about involvement and association; the outward and visible demonstration of private and personal affiliation. Branding enables us to define ourselves in terms of a shorthand that it is immediately comprehensible to the world around us.”

(Olins, 2003, p.14)

It is clear that customers look far beyond about what a brand is, and look more to what it represents. People and societies are now defined by their commodities rather than who they are. “Branding is about creating and sustaining trust, it means delivering on promises.” (Olins, 2003, p.170) Branding became powerful, as the trust has been maintained hence the brand remains successful. “The best and most successful brands are completely coherent. Every aspect of what they do and what they are reinforces everything else.” (Olins, 2003, p.175) Brands are created as a seduction technique; they aim to present a simple and clear message that the customer can emotionally relate to. It is the brands that represent the clearest messages that are the most successful. Today the trust that is expected in brands; has been manipulated in order to seduce the customer to have an emotional connection and hence creating a successful product that people will continue to buy. Another technique which branding uses is to appeal to a customer on an unconscious level.

“The conscious mind discriminates, decides, evaluates resists or accepts…the unconscious, merely stores information. There is little if any resistance encountered at the unconscious level, to which marketing appeals are now directed.”

(Phillips, 1997, p.115)

            From this quote it is apparent that companies are searching for any method that will reach the customer on a deeper level to create this emotional connection, so they will not have the capability to resist buying into the brand. This is be re-enforced by a quote from Olins in his book ‘On Brand,’ where he says that; “Brands offer the illusion of choice.” (Olins, 2003, p.10) The illusion of that Olins refers to: is created by the representations of life-styles and social status’s. People believe they have a choice in the brands they buy into. In reality we have no choice when buying brands, they have too much power and influences in how we think and behave. We know what type of lifestyle we want or want to show we have, and consequently which brands represent which life styles. We are always looking for the ‘better’ and sometimes healthier option in everything we buy.

In reference back to the seduction of trust in a brand; companies use the influence the media has over us and how it determines what we think and believe such as health and beauty. Brands feed off the obsessions of the Western World and as a result can often be “manipulating and misleading.” (Olins, 2003, p.181) Many companies have exploited the customer’s trust in the perceptions of a brand in order to generate successful products. This is especially evident in food and drink products. A food or drink brand that makes a customer believe is a healthy alternative will be more successful than one that doesn’t. Even so, such a brand to succeed it still has to appear functional for people to buy it. The media keeps showing us images of the ‘ideal’ man or woman, this then encourages us to want to look like that and consequently buy in to food and drink brands that represent a healthy lifestyle that will leave you feeling beautiful, just like the actors in the adverts.

Businesses today exploit the methods of branding; logo, brand name, and the language it is written in to clarify the association’s people. It is the name of the brand that is most significant to the customer; this is what customers read into. “A brand name can reduce the risk for the customer,” (Riezebos, 2003, p.45)

If the name clearly communicates what the brand is about and performs, the customer will trust it. Many companies today chose the functional approach to branding. They chose to emphasize the functional attributes of the brand and use a name such as ‘Vitamin Water’. This results in the customer focusing on the word ‘vitamin’ and immediately associating this with the product being healthy. It is here that the exploitation of branding is brought to light. In an article about Semiotics, Barthe talks about signage and representations of meaning. “Denotation is not the first meaning, but pretends to do so.” (www.aber.ac.uk, 2008) He also references how “the orders of significance called denotation and connotation combine to produce ideology.” (www.aber.ac.uk, 2008)

Barthe explains how the ideological and emotional associations that it creates sometimes mask the literal meaning of a sign. These connotations can be emphasised by the style or tone of voice that the semiotic is written in. This is backed up by Fiske saying, “it is often easy to read connotative values as denotative facts.” (Fiske 1982) Explaining that people become too involved in what they see and start thinking that the emotions they feel are the literal facts. It is people’s miss-judged ideology and associations of a brand that makes it a success. “A brand encompasses the perception of it and its reputation, as well as its tangible ‘look and feel’ it related to the customer experience of it. Its impact if quantifiable.” Evidently we are all seduced by the expert techniques of branding.

The rise in with health in the Western World has made it very easy for companies to create brands of drinks that consumers will be seduced. This seduction leads customers to believe anything they are told or shown.

 “Bottled water has emotional connotations of health, purity, activity and fitness which seems to have a special resonance for the western world…people pay relatively large sums of money for the emotional satisfaction they derive from drinking it.”

(Olins, 2003, p.181)

                       

            This quote demonstrates that even by branding and packaging our most basic necessity automatically will blind us with the social and cultural satisfactions. When buying a product, the customers look at the brand name to decipher what the product tastes like, what it does, and what it represents. With the example of bottled water, it may taste the same as water from a tap, but because this water has been bottled and branded, people believe it is better for you and resulting in both being and representing a healthier and happier lifestyle. We care more about what we look like and our commodities than what we are actually being sold. Vitamin Waters is an example of a strong and clear brand name that is incredibly misleading when describing the actual drink. This brand that was created in 1996 and then taken over by Coca-Cola and is marketed as healthy alternative because it contains “all your digital nutrients in one gulp.” (http://www.vitaminwater.co.uk/ 2010) In reality, this drink contains 32.5 grams of sugar, in comparison to a can of Coke that has 39 grams of sugar, hardly a healthy drink. This drink is a bottle of sugar filled, flavored water that has been referred to as junk food with the addition of vitamins and minerals. It is the exaggeration of the drinks function in the brand name that attracts people. Customers see the word ‘vitamin,’ and automatically associate this drink with healthier lifestyle. Further more, they trust the brand because they believe that a drink would not be able to be called ‘Vitamin Water’ unless it did have health benefits. The name refers to two of our basic necessities, vitamins and water. It is simple and makes people believe there is nothing much else in the drink apart from the what the brand name say, and is therefor healthy. It is true that the drink has vitamins and minerals in it, however these also come at the price of a huge amount of sugar. These clear images and association this brand provides are seducing customers into believing they are getting a quick fix to a healthier lifestyle. Referring back to a quote at the start of the essay, everything about this product is inviting and reaches customers on an unconscious level where ‘little resistance is encountered’; the brand name, the colours of the labels and products, the language it talks to us in, and even the shape and size of the bottle.

The seduction of this brand is aided by the bright, colourful labels, and the fun, jokey tone of voice that the brand communicates with customers in. “Keep perky when your feeling Murky.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk. 2012) A more humorous tone of voice gives the brand more believability as it talks to the customer as a friend would do so, and this helps to reinforce the trust in the brand. It is not just the brand name that makes customers believe this drink is healthy; it is the environments that the product has been sold in. “The clearest way of understanding a brand…is to look at the environment where it makes or sells it.” (Olins, 2003, p.176) For example, Vitamin Water sold in the Virgin Active fitness centre the Light in Leeds. By association, gyms promote health so any brand of drink that is sold in a gym is connected to a healthy lifestyle.

            Innocent Smoothie was founded in 1998 and is a perfect example of a company that has been successful without exploiting branding. The aim of the brand is to “make healthy food accessible and pleasant to consume, with an emphasis on using healthy and 100% natural ingredients.” (Abbing, 2010, p.20)

 The founders created the company based on a belief of health, ethics and humor.’ The company chose to brand themselves as ‘Innocent” as it clearly represents trust and honesty in both their company and their products. Every part of the brand reinforces this message from their logo, to their environmentally friendly packaging, to the way Innocent communicates with their customers.

“The innocent brand is able to trigger the values and beliefs of the organization internal, as well as the user needs externally. The brand connects with what the company believes with what the user values, and offers a shared vision of what’s meaningful and worthwhile.”

(Abbing, 2010, p.21)

           

            This is a brand that has become hugely successful and started with a belief rather than a financial agenda. “The power of a brand derives from a curious mixture of how it performs and what it stands for.” (Olins, 2003, p16) The success of this brand mirrors this quote; the brand name ‘Innocent’ refers to the function of the contents; there are no concentrates, no preservatives or flavorings, it is completely hasn’t been touched and is completely innocent of impurities. The company did not need to exploit the function of the product to make customers believe that it is something it is not. Innocent have created a healthy and trustworthy product, and the success of the brand has developed from this, customers have not been disappointed or manipulated and the trust has remained. The drink is “fresh and unadulterated and pure” (Edwards & Day , 2005, p.47) It is the honesty and trustworthiness of the brand that has made it so successful. The logo reinforces the ‘innocent and unadulterated’ nature of the drink.  Referring back to the quote about how we associate brands with private and personal affiliation; the ‘Innocent’ image connects the brand with the nature of children through the simplistic and child-like manner it is drawn in. The halo over the face further reinforces the innocent nature. The halo is traditionally the symbol of Gods and sacred figures, figures of trust. In this context, the iconic nature of the halo is used to represent the truly pure nature of the brand. Linking back the semiotics of a brand; this image represents a good, innocent and problem free lifestyle.

Similar to the Vitamin Waters, the company has adopted a friendly and humorous tone of voice that appeals to customers. Innocent developed this jokey tone of voice in into a more childish vocabulary, “little tasty drinks”, (http://innocentdrinks.co.uk, 2012). This style of communication accentuates the innocent and trusting nature of the company and above all they write in a completely coherent manner, and this is key when connecting with customers. Every thing Innocent writes or shows is delivered in a basic and clear format; even the ingredients are shown in image form. The text on the packaging of the drinks is written in the same nature, it gives the brand a more personal feel and make the customer believe that they are closer and connected to the creators of this brand, “There is a charm and openness in everything the brand does.” (Edwards & Day , 2005, p.48) It is this openness that creates the trust: the brand has nothing to hide. It is has made is success through pure, honest goodness of branding.

In conclusion, the vast development of brands in our world have shaped and styled who we are. Every person will chose a brand in which they can define themselves by, either consciously or unconsciously. It is our obsessions and trust in brands that we love that sustains the power of brands. It is this obsession that has enabled companies to exploit and manipulate both branding methods and the customer. Brands have become the largest power in our society, and the peoples biggest weakness. They have shifted from having just a commercial value, to having cultural and social values as well. A successful brand appeals to everyone, and for everyone to appeal to a brand it has to represent something that everyone is seeking for; to look and feel good. It is the health obsession that has lead for the functional nature of products to be branded as something that they aren’t, creating a successful brand by misleading and miss guiding customers. Other companies, like Innocent have created honest brands and honest products. This something that people are prepared to pay more for because they are 100% certain that they are receiving the personal, social and cultural benefits that are being promoted. It is a combination of a customers trust worthy nature and their love of branded products that creates a successful brand. A customer has a choice when buying a product that is branded as healthy but they know it isn’t, they could make a conscious effort to check the contents of a product; however it is the influence of the power of brands that reassures us that we don’t need to. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Olins, W (2003) On Brand London: Thames & Hudson

Riezebos, R (2003) Brand Management: A Theoretical and Practical Approach England: Pearson Education Limited

Davis, M (2009) The Fundamentals of Branding Singapore: AVA Publishing SA

Edwards, H. Day, D (2005) Creating Passion Brands: How to build emotional brand connection with customers London & Philadelphia: Kogan Page Limited

Holt, Douglas B. (2004) How Brands Became Icons USA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation

Phillips, Michael. J (1997) Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising USA: Greenwood Publishing Group Inc.

Abbing. Erik, R (2010) Brand Driven Innovation AVA Academia USA: Publishing

Klein, N No Logo (2009) Picador

Ragas, M. Ragas, Bueno B. J (2002) The Power of Cult Branding Prima

http://www.vitaminwater.co.uk/

http://innocentdrinks.co.uk/

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Documents/Documents/Publications/Power_of_branding.pdf

http://e-fairbank1013-cts.blogspot.com/2012/01/vitamine-water-presentation.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/06/coca-cola-glaceau-ads-banned-asa

Task 5 - The Gaze

‘According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47)
Discuss this quote with reference to one work of art and one work from the contemporary media.


Berger writes about how the gaze and how it is about being watched and being aware of yourself; how men look at survey women before they determine how to treat them and because of this women had to make sure they were seen in a way they want to be appear. He talks about how men and women have a different social presence in society, men are seen as more powerful and dominant to women, whereas women are to be looked at by men. Women turn themselves into object in order for me to 'gaze' at them and see them in a certain way. Furthermore women should express themselves through how they look; their tastes, their surrounds and what they wear. Women should be aware of them being watched and hence be aware of how they are seen. "An so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a women."

‘Birth of Venus’ - Alexandre Cabanel’ (1863)

This painting is a good example of the gaze and how women have been percieved. The figure takes up two thirds of the whole composition and she depicted in a slightly seductive, reclining position where showing off the female form. While one arm is stretched behind her, the right partially covers her eyes; she is not looking directly at the viewer, removing the 'intimacy' of her gaze and allowing us to look at an objectify her without her seeing or knowing. 'To be on display is to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs on one's own body, turned into a disguise, which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The huge is condemned to never be naked. Nudity is a form of dress." Many art pieces  were created for a male dominated audience, this quote talks about how nudity is now a form of dress; therefore making it socially acceptable for men to gaze and naked / nude paintings of women. 

Sophia Dahl, Yves Saint Laurent advert,

The photograph on the left was the original orientation but changed to the portrait orientation for the actual advert as the original was too suggestive. This advert has been banned in the UK after receiving 730 complained and deemed 'offensive and degrading.', The original horizontal orientation was not allowed to be used because of the suggestive sexual nature of the female form, and hence not suitable to be placed in public. Just like the 'Birth of Venus', the figure of Sophia Dalh is not looking at the viewer, allowing us (male dominated society) to look at the picture and objectify her. However, it is the suggestive and erotic post of the female form that invites men to objectify this, a women using her sexuality to attract public attention. This is something that has become very accepted in our society today from films, posters to even music video where female artists are wearing very little and dancing in a seductive manner; exploiting their sexuality to gain attention, sell records and hence become a success. It could be argued that this painting is no less suggestive or artistic than a classic painting of a female nude; another reason why the photograph was turned so that she was not lying on her back in that position; an attempt to be slightly less seductive. 

QUOTES FROM 'WAYS OF SEEING'

MAIN POINTS


he examins the ideas by looking at nude images of women - women carry around the idea that they are being looked at


KEY QUOTES


Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’



‘it could be argued that when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man might see them’ (Messaris 1997, 41).


So the women who look at these ads are being invited to identify both with the person being viewed and with an implicit, opposite-sex viewer’


Sources


http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze08.html


http://www.arts.cornell.edu/histart/DOCS/ways_of_seeing_CH3.pdf


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1077818.stm

Task 4 - Hyperreality

Write a short analysis (300 words approx.) of an aspect of our culture that is in some way Hyperreal. Hyperreality is an awqard and slippery concept. 


TASK


Hyperreality is where something has been replaced by a simulacrum; a representation of something that is real.

I feel that this quote is a good example of the world that we live in today; everything we see is the 'better' version of the original, people are never interested in the natural look, instead they strive for the illusion of perfection.
Baudrillard has written that he think the division between real and simulation has collapsed, and we now live in a hype-real world, everything we see has been edited, enhanced, cut or super imposed and that 'image is everything' to us today, as a result we produce 'perfect' replicas or versions of ourselves and our world. "The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal. . . which is entirely in simulation. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible."  An example of hyperreality is the images that are released and used in the media, mainly in the fashion and gossip magazines. Photographs are taken of celebrities and models and are then edited and enhanced using Photoshops (and other programs) so to create an image of perfection. The image of what beauty should be, which is then used by the media knowing that people will attempt to copy it. This topic reminds me of a few photographs that Britney Spears released a few years ago to show to the world how touched up and fake the images in magazines actually were. As you can see she has been slimmed town, airbrushed, removed the imperfections to show flawless skin, the cracks in her heals have been airbrushed out; all of this to produce and image that people over the world compare themselves to thinking it was an image of what the idea / perfect figure or woman should look like, when in reality they would be comparing themselves to a false representation of a woman, hence creating unhealthy role models as people strive for something that isn't real, shown through the quote below.

Definition


Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience



hyperreality [ˌhaɪpərɪˈælɪtɪ]

n pl -ties

(Sociology) (Philosophy) an image or simulation, or an aggregate of images and simulations, that either distorts the reality it purports to depict or does not in fact depict anything with a real existence at all, but which nonetheless comes to constitute reality

Simulacrum (plural: simulacra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity",^[1] was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god


hyperreality:-a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra


ABOUT HYPERREALITY


Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches allegedly make the material promise of endless amounts of identical food from the store, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite, as a person would expect from a fast food restaurant


KEY QUOTES


Jean Baudrillard (1994) maps the transformation from representation to simulacrum in four ‘successive phases of the image’ in which the last is that "it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum" 


One of the fundamental qualities of hyperreality is the implosion of Ferdinand Saussure’s (1959) model for the sign (see semiotics) (pg. 67). The mass simulacrum of signs become meaningless, functioning as groundless, hollow indicators that self-replicate in endless reproduction. Saussure outlines the nature of the sign as the signified (a concept of the real) and the signifier (a sound-image). Baudrillard (1981) claims the Saussurian model is made arbitrary by the advent of hyperreality wherein the two poles of the signified and signifier implode in upon eachother destroying meaning, causing all signs to be unhinged and point back to a non-existing reality (180). Another basic characteristic of the hyperreal is the dislocation of object materiality and concrete spatial relations (seeobjecthood). 

SOURCES


http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/jean_baudrillard_and_hyperrealit.htm


http://138.232.99.40/RSim061108_Sim_Sim.pdf

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/realityhyperreality.htm

http://mediacrit.wetpaint.com/page/Hyperreality%3A+The+Authentic+Fake