Understanding Key Terms

 There are two ways of sharing information, old and new way. Things can be learned either directly or indirectly. Directly, we know things from our own experience, mostly involving our senses (look, smell, feel, sound, taste). Indirectly it is through a medium ( a parent, friend, teacher, photograph, internet, television…). Old way of sharing information would be through letters or multiple channels (people) and the information would either be altered, long awaited or couldn't reach large enough audience. New way would be mass media, which allows people to connect all over the world.

Mass media led to convergence, the tendency of different media to share a common platform, erasing boundaries between individual types of mass media. Due to convergence, mass media was distributed globally, leading to globalization. Globalization represents interaction of the world, exchange of ideas. Nowadays world interacts through mass media, which is organised in four subcategories: print media, broadcast media, new media and motion picture and sound recording. This process introduces people to different cultures, habits and information. Globalization then lead to mass production, especially soft goods such as cell phone plans and digital content providers. This was especially popular in 1960s, during the historical epoch of postmodernity. All these changes poke at the meaning of simulation. Simulation by definition is imitation of a thing or a process. In our context, simulation can be perceived as an imaginary reality we get through mass media that has little to no relation to the real thing. Media builds on the reality that never existed, feeding us ideas that are now so common we cannot differentiate them from the ones we had before.