Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Baudrillard conceptualizes simulation as “the reality which seems like the real yet masks it by threatening the distinction between reality and the simulacrum”. Simulated world is beyond the imitation. However, digitalization is way more different than Baudrillard’s era that we were bound to television screens. After social media applications -especially Instagram- were introduced, the distinction between reality and the simulacrum has been lost even more. In this paper, I interpret Baudrillard’s hyperreality and simulation theory through social media app Instagram by having interview Turkish teenagers. I focus on how the generation that was born into the digital world which constitutes their own reality. I read the relationship between the new media and reality by starting a debate on neoliberal discourse that surpasses narcissistic subject and the fetish. Zizek’s reading of “the Master” and the loss of it will be leading the text to argue the world of the “image” as the world of the new “Masters”. I discuss the sublimation of the images and order of “icon” in order to interrogate postmodern individual’s reality and hyperreality. My research group is a group of social-media user university students aged between 18-22 live in Istanbul. Questions on usage/reception of Instagram and reality are addressed in the study.