The basic characteristic of the present is that society organised according to simulations,
codes and models replaces production as the organising principle of society (Macintosh,
2002). This creates a need to observe and analyze phenomena that constitute our life and
interests primarily in accordance with their textual properties and semiotic content, from
which follows the ‘‘linguistic turn’’ that happened in many social sciences and humanities.
Power analyzes are now transferred to the discoursive level, and attention is paid to
language itself and to studying how it works and how it is used. In knowledge-based
societies, the rule of technocratic apparatuses takes place primarily through the use of
information devices and telecommunication media. Hand in hand with this epistemological
switch, there have been significant changes in ontological assumptions regarding the very
nature of Being. The simulation order is characterized by an emphasis on the non-material
sign realm over the material commodity realm. Individual and masses should be understood
as sign systems. Homo semioticus replaced homo economicus (Macintosh, 2002, p. 65):