Mamta Kalia

information because of media’s binary
structure of question and answer that
programmes all responses through
opinion polls, exit polls, game shows
and reality shows- there the structured
questions expect structured answers (e.g.
the audience/readers have only restricted
choices). In Indian case, in Kaun Banega
Crorepati?(KBC), Dus Ka Dum, Kya Aap
Panchavi Pass Hain? and other game
shows, most of the questions related
to mythology (that was often shown as
real history), fashion, styles and so on.
For instance, in the game show of Dus
Ka Dum one question (asked by filmstar
Salman Khan) was: what percentage of
Indian women use their ‘aanchal’ (front
of saree) for different purposes? Or how
many males were caught red handed
cheating their girlfriends? Obviously these
superficial questions are not relevant
but only if their responses match with
the pre-determined answers, the players
get a huge amount as reward. Thus real
questions and real information get
replaced by such non-serious and
hyperreal questions. That is why
Baudrillard rightly avers that while the
real is produced, hyperreal is reproduced
– it is a reproduced real, the real as
‘the generation by models of a real without
origin or reality’, constituted from
miniatured units, from matrices, memory
banks and command models- ‘ a
meticulous reduplication of the real,
preferably through another reproductive
medium’. He is of the view that in the
hyperreal the idea of representation has
become irrelevant, and labour
production, the political, everything
persists but lacks all referentiality and
is reduced to the status of meaningless
sign.
But all assumptions of Baudrillard
cannot be accepted. I tend to agree with
Mark Poster, Craig Calhoun as well as
S. Best and Douglas Kellner who criticise
Baudrillard on following grounds:
a) he does not define terms like ‘code’
and his writing style is ‘hyperbolic
and declarative’, often ‘lacking
sustained, systematic analysis’;
b) he totalises his insights and does
not qualify and delimit his claims;
c) he paints a very bleak view of
the world simply basing on
television images, ignoring social
(race, gender), political (state)
and economic situations in the
real life world;
d) he ignores the positive side of
media – e.g. providing vital
information about wars,
communal/caste violence and so
on;
e) he often takes contemporary
trends as finalities;
f) since there is a substantial internal
differentiation among ‘ the
masses’, hence it needs to be
studied by focusing on cultural
variation.
Frederic Jameson makes an important
observation that the boundaries or
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