COMPREHENDING ADVERTISEMENTS THROUGH JEAN BAUDRILLARDS POSTMODERNISM

Ekawati Marhaenny Dukut (Dra. Ekawati M. Dukut, M.Hum. is a full-time lecturer at the Faculty of Letters, Soegijapranata Catholic University, Semarang.)

Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature
Vol 6, No 1: July 2006, Nationally Accredited

Nowadays people are living in a postmodern society, which is nihilistic because many things are being simulated that no one actually knows which is real. What people see on television or a magazine, for example, is regarded more real than the reality itself. One of the factors that make a society feel more comfortable in living in a hyper-real world is because of the existence of advertisements or ads. Thus, to understand what is signified by an ad, a reader or consumer needs to take in mind the theory of postmodernism laid out by Jean Baudrillard.