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Postmodern Mythologies: The Contemporary Society (reflected) in Media Narratives
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (host committee)
Language: French and English
Session Type: Oral
The sociological analysis places the social representations and beliefs in the center of “sociality” (often indicating their relation with archetypes). This aspect conduces to take into consideration the mythic dimension of any social existence and intends to reveal the dominant myths of an era (of a culture, a generation or a class). The contemporary imaginary (the symbols expressing the contemporary life) exists everywhere: in politics and official ceremonies but also in everyday “commonplace” practices and behaviors (in familiar objects, encounters, popular entertainment and narrations).
In this frame, we consider as an ideal field of analysis of the contemporary symbolisms and of the supporting/ corroborative theories and ideas of the contemporary social organization, the different “media narratives”. Referring to the “narratives” (in R. Barthes’ sense), we include not only the political, economic or social analysis in the information journals and magazines (printed or audiovisual), but also the narratives related to the “explanation” and/or “symbolization” of the contemporary habits and attitudes (such as games, life-style and reality shows and even popular artistic products) in mass or “social” media (taking into consideration that the “image” plays a primordial role in nowadays symbolisms).
This session invites media analyses which “reveal” how essential issues of the contemporary beliefs on existence (such as the meaning of “superpower”, the fantasies on the identities and “otherness” or of “social control”, the issues related to “duration”, the “dangerous impulses” etc.) are understood and expressed in the contemporary media narratives (in any media, anywhere).