What is metafiction, and how does Don DeLillo's White Noise embody it?

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Metafiction is writing that makes the act of storytelling visible—it draws attention to fiction as a construction and invites readers to question what counts as "real" within a story. Don DeLillo’s White Noise embodies this by saturating the world with media, advertising, and talking about knowledge as something mediated and manufactured. The novel constantly shifts through screens, commercials, news, and product images, so meaning isn’t a straightforward truth but a set of signs that can be bought, sold, or manipulated. This focus on how information is produced and framed—the illusion that knowledge comes from signals rather than direct experience—alerts readers to the act of representation itself. The sense that life is filtered through media and signs, and that what characters understand is shaped by those filters, is the metafictional move: the text foregrounds its own status as a crafted narrative about representation. That emphasis on fictionality and media saturation is why this approach best captures what White Noise does.