‘The map precedes the territory’: Pok�mon Go through the eyes of Jean Baudrillard | openDemocracy: When I think about this international virtual gaming incident, and watch players around us in familiar spaces made new by spinning Pok�stops, towering Gyms and alluring magical creatures, I’m reminded of the work of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and his concerns about today’s hyper-mediated society.
Baudrillard coined the phrase “the map precedes the territory” to express the idea that our knowledge of the representation of space (the map) is often more familiar and more ‘real’ to us than the actual space itself. Accordingly, as the media increasingly filters information and experience for us, Baudrillard suggests that ‘authentic’ reality will no longer exist; everything around us will become a reflected construction.
Baudrillard coined the phrase “the map precedes the territory” to express the idea that our knowledge of the representation of space (the map) is often more familiar and more ‘real’ to us than the actual space itself. Accordingly, as the media increasingly filters information and experience for us, Baudrillard suggests that ‘authentic’ reality will no longer exist; everything around us will become a reflected construction.