Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.
One example of hyperreality in our culture is the zoo. You go to the zoo to view animals in what appears to be their natural habitat, but in actual fact it is not a faithful representation of their natural life.
Baudrillard speaks of the un-reality masking the reality. The zoo is a good example of this, the truth is disguised by a false representation of reality, distorting our understanding of it. The zoo also brings all different parts of the world together, merging different habitats of these animals into one space, this would never happen in reality, making the zoo hyperreal.
Where hyperreality is demonstrated reality is replaced by simulacrum. Simulacra is a copy of something that is there to stand in for or replace what is real. Simulacra makes it difficult to differentiate from the copy and the original. Most people won't ever get the chance in their lives to experience what these animals' lives are actually like in the wild, so the zoos copy of this becomes a reality to them, making the zoo itself a simulacrum.
'It is the generation by models of a real without origins or reality: a hyperreal' (Baudrillard), This quote from Baudrillard can be seen to describe the zoo. Everything that is presented to the public is a representation or a model of what is real, except it is made more accessible and more practical for the public to view. It is then that the boundaries between the real and the hyperreal become blurred. When the copy becomes more known and recognised than the original, people start to believe the copy to be the reality and it becomes hyperreal.
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