From: Ake Nilsen <Ake.Nilsen-AT-soc.lu.se>
Subject: Re: Visuals (fwd)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 11:39:15 +0100


Hi there!

 I have been listening to this talk for a while
now, and I think it is time for me to take the
leaf from my mouth.
 I'm interested in trying to understand
Baudrillards notion of simulation in the context
of local-global meaningproduction i.e. how it is
possible for a general and globally produced
meaning to become significant on a local and
particular level. I will contribute with an
extract from my paper SIMULATION AND THE
INTERSUBJECTIVE CREATION OF MEANING presented at
European sociological conferens 1995:

"On this macro-level of society we can study
information i.e., images, texts, etc. as signs.
Signs normally refer to something real, an
existing object or phenomena, but on this level,
with the globally produced meanings, the referent
is no longer to be found in reality. The referent
for the signs are no longer attached to something
existing in a local context, which would make them
particular, but to an abstraction or an idealised
model of something real, which make them general.
It is this idealised model which has been
reproduced over and over again in the commercial
culture, the model of family structure, the model
of manhood, of happiness and despair. Nowadays,
these idealised models have become the referent
for the way the globally produced meanings are
constructed.
   If we for instance take the advertising as an
example. The Marlboro ad's (with the Cowboy-hat
and -boots wearing and smoking Marlboro-man
promising freedom and independence) are totally
dependent on the viewers knowledge of
Western-movies and its mythology. The ad's signify
a way of life totally abstracted and idealised
compared to what it really was like during the
white mans "going West". The referent for these
ad's are not something empirically possible to
find either in the present nor in history, but to
a mythology deep rooted in American culture.

  In the post-industrial era a new relationship is
established where the referent, corresponding to
something real, is vanished. Things and signs no
longer refer to something real, but to an
abstracted model of reality created within the
system itself, the commercial culture industry or
the consumption-industry. This is what Baudrillard
calls simulation, where the referent no longer
exists as something real.
   Abolishing the real referent, necessarily
coming out of a local context, is, as I argue, the
possibility for the globally produced culture and
meanings to become significant in a local context.
Instead of referring to a local context which
makes the signs particular, the globally produced
meanings have to refer to themselves, i.e. to the
meanings already produced and established, which
makes them general. The globally produced meanings
assume a competence by the consumer in having
knowledge of this commercial culture and its
significance. Without this competence the
commercial culture becomes quite absurd. This
competence has been developed more and more in the
post-war era and we are constantly being exposed
to it from birth. It has become a part of our
culture and the way we understand the world. But
there is a difference between this knowledge and
the knowledge gained from our own actions in the
world."

Bye for now.
AkeN


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