Baudrillard, hyperreality, and the ‘problematic’ of (mis/dis)information in social media
Cathryn van Kessel, Jason D. Manriquez, Kip Kline
Abstract
This conceptual article deconstructs (mis/dis)information via social media as a philosophical problematic: A matrix that consists of distinct but intertwined problems. Social media education is a problematic that includes the problems of information, form, structures, and emotionality, as well as a neglected problem of ontology. Through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s social theory, the ontological aspect of media education is explained via the concepts of screen promiscuity (i.e. that screens have proliferated such that everything is visible) and hyperreality (i.e. the more real than real, a world in which images and representations have no real-world referents). Although the ontological aspect of (mis/dis)information on social media education opens up as many questions as it answers within social studies education, such an approach explains why logic on its own is insufficient and invites educators to combine tactics and approaches.