The Infl uence of Trickster Behavior in the Media Space on the Dynamics of Cultural Industries

Abstract

The trend of media consumption in recent years has been the sharp interest of the mass audience in communication and entertainment. This practice can also be traced in the dynamics of the development of cultural industries, where the emergence of new words (“blog”, “podcast”, “hashtag”, etc.) is noted. This indicates that the media continues to play a huge role in the production and preferences of certain cultural products. Under the infl uence of mediatization, there is a steady demand for behavioral models that, based on humor, irony or deception, contribute to changing the existing order. One of these models is trickster behavior. Such actions in the society of impressions are perceived as a form of entertainment. The purpose of this article is to attempt a philosophical understanding of such transformations in public consciousness and media consumption in the context of cultural and economic dynamics. My thesis is that the trickster, who is a universal archetypal fi gure immersed in a socio-cultural context, plays an important role both in mythology and in religion, culture, media, economics, and politics. It serves as a unifying principle in the process of forming the social memory of peoples, exposing the negative qualities of man and society, showing the level of existing values and morality. Sociocultural, semiotic, historiosophical, communicative and psychoanalytic approaches have been applied to the study of trickster behavior. As a result of the research, manipulative tactics used by tricksters in the media space have been identifi ed, which make it possible to implement a strategy of theatricality: in behavior and speech on the verge of “norm – outrageousness”, an unconventional vision of the situation, a reaction to the challenges of social reality, the introduction of new cultural mythologies into public consciousness. The infl uence of their actions on the formation of sociocultural stereotypes is noted. The study expands the understanding of trickster behavior through the prism of established trends in media consumption and reproduction of cultural products (movies, games, blogs, performances by media personalities, etc.). The relevance of the trickster model of behavior is justifi ed by the digitalization and mediatization of the space of human existence. Keywords: trickster, trickster behavior, cultural industries, archetype, cultural mythologies