Baudrillard’s views on consumer society and its present implications

Аннотация

The contemporary culture and society is marked by plurality, diversion, intense fragmentation, and indirection. It can be discovered that it is mass media that create demands and seduction of objects and ultimately make the contemporary society a powerful consumer society. Media have shaken the very foundation of postmodern culture, giving a new direction to reality. The relationship between the real and simulacra has undergone a sea change in the contemporary society. Now the very concept of a true copy is thrown into the wind. Models and simulacra have become reality. In the postmodern media and consumer society, everything becomes an image, a sign, a spectacle, a trans aesthetic, and trans-political. The present paper makes an investigation on the four points — (1) postmodern society is the society of communication established by mass media (2) postmodern society is a consumer society and (3) the culture of postmodern society is based on simulation, simulacra, or hyper-reality, and (4) postmodern society is nearing the fractal order. It also seeks to describe various postmodern trends in present Uzbekistan, the efficacy of the reforms in the social sphere and the need to be more conscious of the various side effects of the formation of westerntype consumer society.