SIMULATED REALITY: A STUDY OF ADVERTISEMENTS AS IMAGES REPLACING REALITY

The revolutions in the sphere of communication led to the development of the mass culture—a culture developed and perpetuated by the mass media for the masses. Advertisements, being a part of the mass media, are involved in the generation of mass culture. Advertisements were initially viewed as an efficient method of mass promotion of products in that a single message could be disseminated to a large, heterogeneous and widely dispersed audience. It is precisely this very character of advertisements that makes its role significant in shaping the consciousness of a society. The paper analyses select advertisements as simulations using insights from Jean Baudrillard to discover how they help the postmodern society live with the trauma of a slipping reality.