Hyperreality
and
Cyberspace


Andra
Keay
:
ARIN6902
:
Internet
&
Governance



In
‘Digital
Nation’,
Douglas
Rushkoff
says
that
‘the
internet
has
changed
from
a

thing
one
does,
to
a
way
we
live’.
(2010)



In
the
introduction
to
“The
Governance
of
Cyberspace”,
Brian
Loader

summarises
the
key
concepts
of
postmodernism
'to
consider
the
idea
that

cyberspace
is
in
some
sense
a
manifestation
of
the
post‐modern
world:
a
domain

where
post‐modern
cultural
theories
fuse
with
the
post‐industrial
information

society
thesis'.
(1997)



Jean
Baudrillard,
1929‐2007,
a
French
social
theorist
and
philosopher,
said
that

reality
was
changing
as
a
result
of
consumer
culture
and
changing
information
&

communication
technologies.

Baudrillard
called
this
emerging
culture

‘hyperreality’,
where
‘the
world
of
face‐to‐face
was
becoming
the
world
of
the

‘interface’’
(Poster,
1998).
Everything
is
at
once
real
and
a
simulation
or
copy
of

reality,
or
a
copy
of
a
copy
of
a
copy,
until
reality,
or
at
least
the
subject,
is

seduced
into
its
images



Jorge
Luis
Borges’
fable
(copied
from
Lewis
Carroll)
tells
of
the
cartographer

ordered
to
produce
a
truly
accurate
map,
which
needed
to
be
so
large
that
it

covered
the
entire
empire.
As
a
result,
the
empire
faded
and
crumbled
while
the

map
itself
rotted
into
the
landscape.
Finally,
the
fragments
of
map
no
longer

represent
the
empire
but
are
all
that
remain
of
the
empire.
This
illustrates

Baudrillard’s
‘precession
of
simulacra’,
which
culminates
in
hyperreality,
where

‘henceforth
it
is
the
map
which
precedes
the
territory’
(Baudrillard
&
Poster,

1998).




Key
thinkers
of
postmodernism
include
Heidegger,
Barthes,
Saussure,
Derrida,

Foucault,
Lyotard,
Deleuze,
Jameson
and
Baudrillard.
Baudrillard
started
as
a

Marxist
poststructuralist
who
turned
a
semiological
analysis
(of
signs)
towards

the
effects
of
media
on
society
as
a
whole.



Baudrillard’s
concept
of
‘hyperreality’
where
the
constant
exchange
of
signs

supersedes
production
and
exchange
value
owes
a
lot
to
Marshall
McLuhan’s

technologically
deterministic
view
of
the
world
of
the
1960s
wherein
the
object

dominates
the
subject
and
the
individual
in
a
postmodern
world
becomes

‘merely
an
entity
influenced
by
media,
technological
experience,
and
the

hyperreal’
(Kellner,
2009).




Loader
asks
what
the
impact
on
governance
will
be
if
advanced
capitalism
is

being
restructured,
economically
and
socially
through
developing
information

and
communication
technologies.



Mark
Poster,
editor
of
Baudrillard’s
‘Selected
Writings’
says,
“The
concurrent

spread
of
the
hyperreal
through
the
media
and
the
collapse
of
liberal
and
Marxist

politics
as
the
master
narratives,
deprives
the
rational
subject
of
its
privileged

access
to
truth.
In
an
important
sense
individuals
are
no
longer
citizens,
eager
to

maximise
their
civil
rights,
nor
proletarians,
anticipating
the
onset
of

communism.
They
are
rather
consumers,
and
hence
the
prey
of
objects
as

defined
by
the
code.”
(1988)



In
the
20th
century,
postmodernism
seemed
at
an
impasse
as

theorists
were
unable
to
reconcile
the
separation
of
cause
and

effect
and
loss
of
human
or
social
agency
implicit
in
a

technologically
determined
world.
At
the
same
time,
the
theorists

of
‘social
shaping’
were
unable
to
explain
the
impact
of

technological
change.
As
Bruno
Latour
observes,
a
polemical
‘social

determinism’
arguing,
for
example,
that
the
steam
engine
was
the

‘mere
reflection’
of
‘English
capitalism’,
is
no
less
extreme
and
one‐
sided
a
view
as
the
technological
determinism
it
seeks
to
contest

(2005).




M.C.Escher


Latour’s
Actor
Network
Theory
emerges
to
fill
the
gap,
focussing
on
the
network

of
relations
between
human
and
non‐human
‘actors’.
Zizek’s
Transcendental

Materialism
and
a
renewed
interest
in
Medium
Theory
also
express
the
desire
to

move
beyond
the
subject/object
dichotomy
and
meaningfully
identify
‘real’.



Although
Foucault
and
Deleuze
remain
the
foundations
of
a
study
of
power

relations,
Loader
needed
to
go
beyond
the
terms
of
postmodernism
to
find
the

tools
of
governance
in
the
21st
century.
Baudrillard’s
‘hyperreality’
forced
the

current
generation
of
thinkers
to
explain
our
loss
of
self
in
the
world
and

examine
where
our
control
lies.



I
recommend
the
extended
version
of
this
summary
at
scribd

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28685677



REFERENCES:



"Digital
Nation:
Life
on
the
Virtual
Frontier"
Frontline
PBS.
Prod.
and
dir.
Rachel
Dretzin.

Correspondent:
Douglas
Rushkoff.
Broadcast
February
2010.
Watched
online
March
2010

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_med
ium=proglist&utm_source=proglist
.



Poster,
Mark
(ed)
(1988).
from
Jean
Baudrillard,
Selected
Writings,
ed.
Mark
Poster
(Stanford;

Stanford
University
Press,
1988),
(pp.
7‐8
of
Poster's
2nd
ed.
of
Selected
Writings).



Poster,
Mark
(1998).
Baudrillard,
Jean.
In
E.
Craig
(Ed.),
Routledge
Encyclopedia
of
Philosophy.

London:
Routledge.
Retrieved
March
12,
2010,
from

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DE003
.



Kellner,
Douglas,
"Jean
Baudrillard",
The
Stanford
Encyclopedia
of
Philosophy
(Winter
2009

Edition),
Edward
N.
Zalta
(ed.),
URL
=

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/baudrillard/
.



Loader,
Brian
W
(ed)
(1997).
The
Governance
of
Cyberspace:
Politics,
technology
and
global

restructuring,
pp1‐15.
New
York:
Routledge.

Latour,
Bruno
(2005).
Reassembling
the
Social:
An
Introduction
to
Actor­Network­Theory
Oxford:

Oxford
University
Press.



McLuhan,
Marshall
(1974).
Understanding
Media

London:
Abacus.



Williams,
Raymond
(1975).
Television:
Technology
and
Cultural
Form
New
York:
Schocken.



Morse,
Margaret.
(1990).
An
ontology
of
everyday
distraction:
The
freeway,
the
mall
and

television.
In
Patricia
Mellancamp
(Ed.),
Logics
of
television:
Essays
in
cultural
criticism
(pp.
193‐
221).
Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press.



Potts,
John
(2008).
Who’s
Afraid
of
Technological
Determinism?
Another
Look
at
Medium
Theory

Fibreculture
Journal
Issue
12.
Retrieved
March
15,
2010
from

http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue12/issue12_potts.html



Trifonova,
Temenuga
(2003).
“Is
There
a
Subject
in
Hyperreality?”
Postmodern
Culture,
Volume

13,
Number
3
(2003)
Retrieved
March
15,
2010
from


http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.503/13.3trifonova.html




Major Theoretical Works by Baudrillard:
• 1996c [1968], The System of Objects, London: Verso.
• 1998 [1970], The Consumer Society, Paris: Gallimard.
• 1975 [1973], The Mirror of Production, St. Louis: Telos Press.
• 1981 [1973], For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, St. Louis: Telos Press.
• 1983a, Simulations, New York: Semiotext(e).
• 1983b, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities, New York: Semiotext(e).
• 1983c, “The Ecstacy of Communication,” in The Anti-Aesthetic, Hal Foster (ed.), Washington:
Bay Press.
• 1988, America, London: Verso.
• 1990a, Cool Memories, London: Verso.
• 1990b, Fatal Strategies, New York: Semiotext(e).
• 1993a, Symbolic Exchange and Death, London: Sage.
• 1993b, The Transparency of Evil, London: Verso.
• 1994a, Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
• 1994b, The Illusion of the End, Oxford: Polity Press.
• 1995, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, P. Patton (trans.), Sydney: Power Publications, and
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• 1996a, Cool Memories II, Oxford: Polity Press.
• 1996b, The Perfect Crime, London and New York: Verso Books.
• 1997, Fragments: Cool Memories III, 1990-1995, London and New York: Verso Books.
• 2000, The Vital Illusion, New York: Columbia University Press.
• 2001, Impossible Exchange (2001). London: Verso.
• 2002a, The Spirit of Terrorism: And Requiem for the Twin Towers, London: Verso.
• 2002b, Screened Out, London: Verso.