What am I doing in cyberspace?

Several prominent critical thinkers have commented on the production / appropriation of images and the generation of meaning (or rather lack thereof) in postmodernist society. At the radical extreme Baudrillard insists that it is impossible to distinguish between the sign and the referent in contemporary society, since the original has been replaced with the simulacrum. Olivier, commenting on Baudrillard, states: “ (…) we live in a totally simulated world, where the images, symbols, signs and concepts which are ordinarily regarded as mediating reality, have become self-sufficient. In other words, they no longer ‘refer’ to an object or a world, but comprise a ‘hyperreality’ of simulation in which we are trapped as in a closed, endlessly self-referential, self-simulating or self-replicating (…) circular process”.

In terms of such a perspective on society, it has become impossible to generate meaning; moreover, if true meaning could be construed, we would not be able to convey that meaning because we do not have legitimate codes. Differently put:  we have no remaining master narratives since we are caught up in the catastrophes associated with the dysfunction of late capitalism, postindustrialism and media culture. This disappearance of the ultimate ‘referent’ is the result of a mediated society, a society that is not real, but a media-construct.

So what am I, and you, doing in cyberspace? In (cyber) space no-one can hear you scream...