Barthes and the Empire of Signs

Roland Barthes' experience of Japan, a morass of signs where appearance and reality intermingle, led him to move from linguistic semiology to a much broader critical enquiry into the field of mass media and popular culture. Do we inhabit today an 'empire of signs'? Roland Barthes' experience of Japan, a morass of signs where appearance and reality intermingle, led him to move from linguistic semiology to a much broader critical enquiry into the field of mass media and popular culture. Do we inhabit today an 'empire of signs'?