鮑德里亞是馬克思主義與符號學之間的相互征用與對話中的一個重要理論家。雖然鮑德里亞的學術生涯經歷了由馬克思主義向后馬克思主義的轉變,但符號學是貫穿始終的方法論。正是符號學方法的運用使其學術生涯呈現出斷裂與聯系的內在張力。通過將符號學引入馬克思主義,鮑德里亞對消費社會的物體系、時尚和藝術品拍賣及其體現出來的消費意識形態進行了分析和批判,進而發展出一種獨特的符號政治經濟學批判理論,以此豐富和發展了經典馬克思主義以及法蘭克福學派的批判理論。也正是將符號學方法推向深入,促使他最終背離了馬克思主義生產理論的基本原則,并在對后工業社會的文化、藝術和傳媒等文化景觀的批判中發展出了擬像、仿真、內爆和超真實等學說,并以此把海灣戰爭作為一種媒介事件展開批判,從而成為一個典型的后現代理論家。

Jean Baudrilard made great contributions to the dialogue between Marxism and Semiotics. Although he changed from a Marxist to a Post-Marxist,semiotics has always been his methodology throughout his academic career. This intrinsic tension between breakage and connection is primarily caused by the usage of semiotics. By introducing semiotics into Marxism,he began to analyze and criticize the object system,fashion,auction of work of arts and the consumer ideology of consumer society,and formulated his unique critical theory of the political economy of the sign. As a result,he enriched and developed the critical theory of classical Marxism and the Frankfurt School. Also because of the usage of semiotics,he deviated from the basic principles of production theory of Marxism and put forward important concepts such as simulacrum,simulation,implosion and hyper-realism,and criticized the Gulf War as a media event. Ultimately,he became a typical postmodernist.