"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning" (Baudrillard, 1994, pg 79).
Baudrillard states three hypotheses to explain this statement.
1- That information produces meaning but, as a result of the loss of signification, meaning is lost and meaning cannot be put back into content before it devours itself. This is the ideology of free speech, ie pirate radio.
2- Shannon's hypothesis states there is no significant relation between more information and less meaning as information has nothing to do with signification.
3- There is a strong link between the two; information is directly destructive of meaning and signification based on the dissuasive action of the media and mass media (including advertising?)
Baudrillard believes the third hypothesis is the most interesting, because it goes against every commonly held opinion. He explains that, "whoever is under-exposed to the media is desocialised or virtually asocial" (Baudrillard, 1994, pg 80). Basically an elaborated version of the metaphor 'living under a rock'.
He argues we, as a public, believe that information is there to create communication. We comply to this myth; we believe that without the media our world would collapse as as we believe information=communication, the opposite in fact occurs.
"Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social" (Baudrillard, 1994, pg 80). Baudrillard has two reasons for this:
1- Instead of information creating communication, as we believe it to, it exhausts itself by staging communication, as is all a simulation as it pretends to communicate.
2- Behind the mise-en-scene of communication, information dissolves meaning and the social in the masses. Therefore, the media are producers of the implosion of meaning in media.
Baudrillard, J (1994) Simulacra and Simulation, USA: The University of Michigan.
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