Modern Mass Culture Research Articles

The Zombie as a Mirror of Modern Mass Culture

Zombies were and still are one of the most important symbols of modern mass culture. The zombie discourse originated among African slaves brought to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. In many ways, the narratives of the “living dead” were a reaction to the crisis phenomena of plantation life. This is evidenced by the rich comparative material presented on many peoples of the world. Such notions of invulnerability after formal death proved to be an important tool of resistance to new conditions caused by external threats. Termed “revitalization,” they were an important element of the Millennialist movements. While initially the sorcerers who could bring themselves back to life were central to these beliefs, in the following period the focus shifted to the victims of various manipulations, transformed into soulless beings. Leaving the environment of their original “habitat,” zombies took on a new life, occupying a firm place in modern mass culture. Having become a symbol of ruthless exploitation of man, relegated to the level of a machine appendage, zombies proved to be one of the most “productive” symbols. They reflected the main trends in the development of society and even began to function as instruments of philosophical reflection. All this allows us to consider zombies as an indicator of altered society, producing new “walking dead”. The metaphors associated with zombies allows us to conclude that the comprehension of zombies makes modern man begin to perceive them constructively, creating a new image, demonstrating the movement towards humanization.

Object of study: video games

In the article the author studies the phenomenon of video games, considering them from different angles: firstly, as a powerful industry, secondly, as the phenomenon of modern popular and mass culture, and thirdly, as a new art form. The author analyzes in which scientific fields the research of this phenomenon is carried out today: computer and engineering sciences, psychology, sociology, art history, culturology, pedagogy, social communications, design. In the article a brief overview of the main views on video games in these disciplines, which are put forward by foreign and Ukrainian scholars is provided, which also helps the author to gradually outline the state of research on video games in the world and Ukraine today. At the same time, the author has the opportunity to highlight exactly how and at what levels video games affect society, culture and people at the individual level. The author provides statistics collected from several international reports on the video game industry about the industry's income, age and gender of players, to outline the state of the video game industry in the world. The researcher attempts to define the concept of "video game" and the related concept of "virtual reality". The athor considers the methods of genre classification of video games, names the main genres of it: adventure, fighting, first-person shooter (FPS), platformer, puzzle, racing, retro, role-playing (RPG), simulator, sports, strategy, survival and horror, arcades, slasher, stealth, quest. In the end the genres of video games, the features and characteristics of these genres are described.

SciFi Cinema as one of Spatial Localizations of Military Images in American Mass Culture

War is one of the most popular topics in modern mass culture. The author analyzes the features of the perception of war in modern science fiction cinema. The purpose of this article is to analyze the representation of war in American science fiction as a form of historical memory in mass culture. The author uses inventionism methods to analyze the images of war in the film production of mass culture as “invented traditions” of the consumer society. The range of perception of war and military experience in popular culture is analyzed. Modern global film industry and national film industries regularly address military themes in the world or national contexts, producing films that actualize military experience of nations and states. The film industry segments that specialize in the production of science fiction and fantasy films also do not ignore the military theme. It is supposed that popular culture offers a variety of images of war, including militarism, violence, military collective trauma, and military political psychosis. The author believes that military theme in popular culture arose as a result of reflection on real military conflicts, and the creators of the pop-cultural project could reject the war or idealize it. The author believes that military science fiction in modern American mass culture actualizes the values of pacifism or militarism as reflections of the left or right preferences of the creators of such cultural product for the consumer society. Science fiction films actualize various forms of war, including global military clashes, civil conflicts, aggression, intervention and genocide. Popular culture is becoming the main sphere of existence of the memory of war because military conflicts of science fiction series can be perceived in the consumer society as more real than the historical wars of the past. Military images of mass culture are supposed to actualize various forms of war memory, including memory as trauma, memory as marginalization, and memory as nostalgia which idealize war.

Communicative Strategies of an Interviewer Yury Dud: A Linguist’s View of the Media Phenomenon in Mass Culture

Purpose.The article examines the methods of building dialogue in interviews conducted by the popular video blogger and journalist Yury Dud, who is named the main hero of Russian cultural life in 2020 by Forbes Life. To determine his individual style, the author analyzes strategies of communicative behavior. The following parameters are the most significant for the description of interviewing strategies: thematic repertoire and thematic dominants of the conversation; methods of requesting/extracting information; methods of interpreting and evaluating what the interlocutor said; the choice of language code. The empirical basis of the study contains interviews by Yu. Dud with various interlocutors – journalists, TV presenters, cultural and show business figures, politicians, and other public figures, uploaded on the YouTube video hosting service in the period of 2017–2020. The analysis of more than 40 programs allows observing a wide range of techniques of a journalist, depending on the “addressee factor”.Results.The key topics that are regularly discussed in interviews are identified, including those that violate ethical taboos (about sex, bad behavior, and bad habits, judgments and hot takes on colleagues and senior officials, etc.). The thematic repertoire is considered as a deliberate communicative choice of a journalist, conditioned by the dramaturgy of public dialogue addressed to a mass audience and the tasks of portrayal.The author reveals the distinctive methods of requesting information and eliciting facts, which is inherent to the journalistic style of Yu. Dud: illocutionary forcing reasoning (“why-questions”), clarifying questions, reformulating, role modeling of relations with a guest, where the journalist often pretends being dilettante. Interpretation and evaluation of the interlocutor's statements are based on the clearest identification of their position for the mass addressee by an explication of ideas expressed by the guest implicitly, “delegation of opinion”, and the effects of “insight”.The choice of the language code indicates the “discursive adaptation” of the journalist to his interlocutor and allows the journalist to reveal to the mass audience their personality, including their speech characteristics. The dynamism of the dialogue is due to the setting to dramatize the conversation scenario: this is manifested not only in the choice of somewhat unexpected topics of conversation, but also in the expression of one's attitude to the statements of the interlocutor, explicit/implicit assessments, and the choice of the speech code.Conclusion.It is concluded that Dud’s interviews are a vivid example of the trends of modern Internet journalism, and the communicative strategies he implements allow us to see the prospects for the development of the genre. Given the popularity of the genre in traditional and new media, the author notices that the interview not only reflects the features of social communications of the 21st century but is also a powerful factor of shaping modern mass culture.

Сыщик Добрынин – современный дядя Степа, или Возращение к образу работника правопорядка в современной массовой культуре

Статья показывает возвращение в современную массовую культуру образа идеального работника правоохранительных органов – сыщика Добрынина. Автор анализирует стихи Д.М. Плоткина (Рязань) о сыщике Добрынине, выделяет основные черты образа полицейского, а также сравнивает его с образом самого известного советского милиционера в массовом искусстве – дядей Степой. The article shows the return of the image of an ideal law enforcement officer to the modern mass culture. The author analyzes the poems of D.M. Plotkin (Ryazan) about detective Dobrynin, highlights his main features, and draws a comparison with the image of the most famous Soviet policeman in mass art represented by Sergey Mikhalkov’s «Uncle Styopa».

PECULIARITIES OF THE ARTISTIC LANGUAGE OF THE UKRAINIAN ARTIST YEVHENIA GAPCHYNSKA

The subject of the research is the developments of the modern Ukrainian artist Evgeniya Gapchinskaya, who is now successfully working in various fields of art and design, ranging from jewelry and book graphics to monumental mural art. The purpose of the work is to investigate the specifics of the artistic language of the named artist in the context of the development of modern mass culture. The methodology of the work is based on a combination of chronological and the principle of scientific comprehensiveness, art history, design and culturological approaches, ontological, axiological, hermeneutic, historical-comparative, cross-cultural and art history analysis methods. The results of the work allow us to understand the secrets of E. Gapchinskaya's success in the field of contemporary art and design. The scope of application of the results – artistic and design practices of the present, history, theory and criticism of art, teaching activities for students and graduate students of creative specialties. Findings. It was found that the artistic language of Yevhenia Gapchinskaya was formed under the influence of Ukrainian and German artistic traditions. Taking into account the one-year internship in Nuremberg at the beginning of the formation of the artistic language, the author was inspired in her artistic searches by the impulses of the high art of the Northern Renaissance and mannerism. In particular, the work of I. Bosch and P. P. Bruegel the Elder (Peasant), whose phantasmagoric language still has a significant impact on the work of young European artists. Also, the formation of the artistic originality of Evgenia Gapchinskaya's handwriting was significantly influenced by the Dutch and Flemish art of the 17th – 18th centuries, headed by Frans Halls and Rembrandt van Rijn, and individual searches for Baroque-Rococo artists from other European countries – J. B. Greuze and T. Gainsborough. In general, the specific artistic and figurative manner of E. Gapchinskaya was influenced by the artist's appeal to related areas of knowledge – nail design, creative work with plastic, environmental design, advertising, image-making, art gallery business, restoration, art management, marketing, logistics and the like.Key words: artistic manner of creativity, Evgeniya Gapchinskaya, Ukraine, the beginning of the XXI century.

«ИЗНАНКА ГОРОДА»: МАРГИНАЛЬНЫЕ ЛАНДШАФТЫ И СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ВИЗУАЛЬНАЯ КУЛЬТУРА

The topic of people thrown to the sidelines of life is considered in a double frame—in the context of the way the urban space is arranged and in the context of modern visual culture (feature films, video and photo blogs, videos on popular YouTube channels). The most hyped-up type of marginal landscape in modern media is slums. The otherness of such spaces has always been a subject of interest and curiosity, for “gazing”—interpretation, perception and entertainment. In modern mass culture, the “location” of the global south slums is especially trendy. In such exterior, hyper-popular feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire have been shot, causing a new cultural phenomenon—mass slum tourism. This phenomenon seems to be ambiguous from an ethical point of view; but from the point of view of visual culture, it is voyeurism brought to the level of an art and everyday life practice. The second type of marginal urban landscapes is local “invasion” into the decent and institutionalized city space. This art form serves as a “location” for a psychological drama of superfluous people. Features of national identity are most clearly manifested on its seamy side rather than anywhere else. Japanese townships of the homeless, incorporated into central and well-to-do areas, are no strangers to order and aesthetics; while Russian realities—chaos, departure from norms and underground—are completely opposite. Classic films devoted to this issue—Dodes’ka-den by Akira Kurasawa, Promised Heaven by Eldar Ryazanov, The Lady in the Van by Nicholas Hytner—model these seamy spaces and their peculiarities inherent in national culture. Very popular now are YouTube channels about the life of homeless people, which show real characters in their real habitats, introducing marginal spaces into the rank of a hot-topic visual culture. This type of visualization provokes another cultural phenomenon— the perception of marginal loci and their inhabitants as an interactive performance. Interactivity can vary from attacking to fraternization, from preaching to charity. Odd as it may seem, hyper-visualization and aestheticization of social ulcers contributes to their social invisibility. It is a problem, which no one is going to solve anymore; it has become a part of modern culture with its own philosophical and aesthetic arguments—and in a certain sense they act as its justification.

The historical past as hyperreality in modern mass culture (Collective monograph review: Cult - goods: Commercialization of History in Mass Culture. Moscow; Ekaterinburg: KABINETNYY UCHENYY, 2020. 348 p.)

The historical past as hyperreality in modern mass culture (Collective monograph review: Cult - goods: Commercialization of History in Mass Culture. Moscow; Ekaterinburg: KABINETNYY UCHENYY, 2020. 348 p.)

«ИЗНАНКА ГОРОДА»: МАРГИНАЛЬНЫЕ ЛАНДШАФТЫ И СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ВИЗУАЛЬНАЯ КУЛЬТУРА

The topic of people thrown to the sidelines of life is considered in a double frame—in the context of the way the urban space is arranged and in the context of modern visual culture (feature films, video and photo blogs, videos on popular YouTube channels). The most hyped-up type of marginal landscape in modern media is slums. The otherness of such spaces has always been a subject of interest and curiosity, for “gazing”—interpretation, perception and entertainment. In modern mass culture, the “location” of the global south slums is especially trendy. In such exterior, hyper-popular feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire have been shot, causing a new cultural phenomenon—mass slum tourism. This phenomenon seems to be ambiguous from an ethical point of view; but from the point of view of visual culture, it is voyeurism brought to the level of an art and everyday life practice. The second type of marginal urban landscapes is local “invasion” into the decent and institutionalized city space. This art form serves as a “location” for a psychological drama of superfluous people. Features of national identity are most clearly manifested on its seamy side rather than anywhere else. Japanese townships of the homeless, incorporated into central and well-to-do areas, are no strangers to order and aesthetics; while Russian realities—chaos, departure from norms and underground—are completely opposite. Classic films devoted to this issue—Dodes’ka-den by Akira Kurasawa, Promised Heaven by Eldar Ryazanov, The Lady in the Van by Nicholas Hytner—model these seamy spaces and their peculiarities inherent in national culture. Very popular now are YouTube channels about the life of homeless people, which show real characters in their real habitats, introducing marginal spaces into the rank of a hot-topic visual culture. This type of visualization provokes another cultural phenomenon— the perception of marginal loci and their inhabitants as an interactive performance. Interactivity can vary from attacking to fraternization, from preaching to charity. Odd as it may seem, hyper-visualization and aestheticization of social ulcers contributes to their social invisibility. It is a problem, which no one is going to solve anymore; it has become a part of modern culture with its own philosophical and aesthetic arguments—and in a certain sense they act as its justification.

Проблема массовизации антиутопии как жанра искусства в условиях общества риска

The problem of this article is the problem of transformation and massization of the genre of dystopia and its loss of its essential features. The hypothesis of the study is the existence of a close relationship between the processes of massizing art and the popularization of dystopia in modern mass culture and public consciousness. The authors draw attention to the role of dystopia in modern society, which can be characterized as a risk society, as well as to the influence of dystopias on the consciousness of the masses. The main methodological technique is functional analysis. In addition, dialectics, the principle of historicism and comparative analysis are applied. The result of the study is the provision that in modern society there is an emphasis on the process of massization of art, during which the border between elite and mass culture becomes much less obvious. In addition, the study clarifies the role of literary works in spreading risks and the requirement of moral, and possibly legal responsibility for such acts. The key conclusion is the provision according to which, in the conditions of blurring the boundaries between elite and mass art, dystopia is becoming a popular genre and has an impact on social reality.

Main trends of development of modern mass and elite music culture

Main trends of development of modern mass and elite music culture

Студенческая научная конференция как мотив изучения современных аспектов массовой культуры

Студенческая научная конференция как мотив изучения современных аспектов массовой культуры

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ СОВЕТСКОЙ ЭПОХИ В ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННЫХ КОМИКСАХ

The article studies representation of the soviet era images in the national comics culture. Paying attention to the popularity and relevance of soviet culture in contemporary mass culture, the authors emphasize the controversial nature of showing the «Soviet past». Analyzing the peculiarities of representation, which is a polysemantic concept and can pursue different goals, the authors focus on the «spectacular» function of representation typical of modern mass culture. The article givess a thorough analysis of national comics in which the representation of the soviet era is most obvious; moreover, the comic strips creators claim it is a deliberate technique. The authors of the article note that the representation of the soviet era can be featured in the plot of a comic book, with references to historical events or historical chronotope of the soviet era. The soviet era can be represented in the system of recognizable characters with possible prototypes in soviet culture. National comic books, addressed to the russian reader, can actualize the visual images of the soviet era. Analyzing various techniques and ways of showing the Soviet era in comics, the authors offer a functional analysis of representation, noting that resorting to the soviet era can serve different purposes and have both positive and negative connotations. The article examines different functions of the soviet era representation connected both with nostalgic trends in society and with ironic perception of the soviet past.

Media Memory in the Fanfiction Culture: the Image of Peter the Great in Online Literature

The article is devoted to the consideration of the image of Peter I in the online literature. The author uses the concept of media memory to describe the phenomenon of the existence of collective ideas about the past in the media environment. He considers the culture of fanfiction as one of the practices of constructing media memory. Analysis of amateur art texts on the crowdsourcing platform "Book of Fan Fiction" (ficbook.net) revealed the ways in which Internet users build their attitude to history. The review of historical texts about the Peter the Great era showed that the user's ideas about Peter the Great are extremely mythologized, based on stereotypes that are overcome by the free interpretation and actualization of the facts of the past, with the help of images of modern mass culture.

ОКУЛЬТИЗМ В СУЧАСНОМУ СВІТІ: ДАНИНА МОДІ ЧИ ІСТОРИЧНА ЗАКОНОМІРНІСТЬ?

The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of social relations that due to testing by various occult organizations, may receive a public request, or be rejected.

Морфология тела и телесности в порно: идеологизация телесности, или как тела заговорили по-русски

Автор анализирует проблемы изменений представленности тела и метаморфозы телесности в порно как сегменте современной массовой культуры общества потребления. Анализ социальных мутаций и культурных трансформаций тела и телесности в порнодискурсе поп-культуры является основой целью статьи. Методологически автор, с одной стороны, использует положения сравнительно-типологического метода, предложенного Владимиром Проппом. C другой стороны, текст восходит к структуралистским концепциям Петра Богатырёва, предложенные им для изучения фольклора. Поэтому порно определяется и анализируется как проявление и форма фольклора общества потребления и массовой культуры. Автор проецирует четыре особенности волшебной сказки, сформулированные Владимиром Проппом, в те культурные пространства, где порнодискурс доминирует в современном обществе потребления. Автор анализирует как «немая» телесность в порно-культуре мутировала, став «говорящей». Анализируются проблемы сочетания и сосуществования телесности и вербальности в современном российском порнодискурсе. Автор изучает, как «тело» в порно-сегменте массовой культуры начало говорить по-русски, анализируя почему политический «месседж» неизбежно мутирует до телесности, постоянно возвращаясь к ней. Автор анализирует также культурные контексты и основания репрезентативности тела в современном российском порнодискурсе. Анализируются проблемы взаимозависимости телесности и политического языка, который использует «тело» в индивидуальном и коллективном контекстах.

Theology of Supernatural

The main research issues of the article are the determination of the genesis of theology created in Supernatural and the understanding of ways in which this show transforms a traditional Christian theological narrative. The methodological framework of the article, on the one hand, is the theory of the occulture (C. Partridge), and on the other, the narrative theory proposed in U. Eco’s semiotic model. C. Partridge successfully described modern religious popular culture as a coexistence of abstract Eastern good (the idea of the transcendent Absolute, self-spirituality) and Western personified evil. The ideal confirmation of this thesis is Supernatural, since it was the bricolage game with images of Christian evil that became the cornerstone of its popularity. In the 15 seasons of its existence, Supernatural, conceived as a story of two evil-hunting brothers wrapped in a collection of urban legends, has turned into a global panorama of world demonology while touching on the nature of evil, the world order, theodicy, the image of God, etc. In fact, this show creates a new demonology, angelology, and eschatology. The article states that the narrative topics of Supernatural are based on two themes, i.e., the theology of the spiritual war of the third wave of charismatic Protestantism and the occult outlooks derived from Emmanuel Swedenborg’s system. The main topic of this article is the role of monotheistic mythology in Supernatural. The author concludes that the case of Supernatural shows how the classical monotheistic narrative, in its orthodox and heterodox formats, is hugely attractive for the modern audience. A wide distribution of the occulture that has become a basis of modern mass culture and easily combines, by virtue of historical specifics of its genesis, with monotheism makes the classical monotheistic mythology more flexible and capable of meeting the audience’s different demands.

Psychological TV-series as a Phenomenon of the Consumer Society of the XXI Century

Introduction. The article examines modern psychological television series as one of the ways to satisfy the thirst for consumption and the desire to find meaning. The author considers the consumer society and the thirst for consumption as its integral characteristic and habit of a person in modern society. To analyze this phenomenon, the author turns to the works of philosophers, finding confirmation of their concepts in modern reality. The emphasis is on the fact that the objects of consumption are “objects” belonging to both material and spiritual culture, with the peculiarity that in the consumer choice itself there is no reflection as its basis. The subject of the research is the phenomenon of modern psychological TV-series.Methodology and sources. To analyze the phenomenon of psychological television series in the context of modern mass and popular culture, the author uses the method of phenomenological analysis, the method of historical parallels, the value method, the dialectical method. The article uses an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. The author relies on the work of representatives of these philosophical trends – Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, Alvin Toffler, Jean Baudrillard, Victor Frankl and others.Results and discussion. We can name many reasons why people can watch TV-series, for example, taking a break from routine, a desire to relax, this is a certain way of spending leisure time. Our goal was to analyze TV-series as a phenomenon of a consumer society, and the situation when watching the series is a goal in itself and a kind of escapism, a way to escape from reality and filling your time. The task was to identify the natural and social reasons for the popularity of modern psychological series.Conclusion. As a result of the analysis, the author concluded that modern high-quality television series perform a triune task. On the one hand, they captivate the plot and allow you to relax and relieve stress, avoiding strong concentration. On the other hand, they involve a claim to be intelligent. And the third point – they distract from routine and everyday life while eliminating the need for a daily choice of a way of spending leisure time. TV-series are a product of the consumer society, and therefore the prerequisite for reflection contained in them is far from always being realized. As a result, the series itself becomes for a person just another way to spend their own time and fill the inner emptiness.

«Тьма страшится меня»: вопросы философской антропологии в трилогии Риддика

Философско-антропологический анализ кинообразов является популярной формой философского исследования пространства современной массовой культуры. В контексте подобных исследований важным инструментом культурологического и философского осмысления героических кинообразов становится концепция мономифа и его методология, позволяющая анализировать и синтезировать внутренние и внешние основания различных киноперсонажей. Автор приложил концепты и методы мономифа к трилогии Риддика – одного из популярнейших персонажей, созданных в рамках фантастического кинематографа начала XXI века. Исследование позволило выявить три основания, являющихся определяющими лейтмотивами сюжета, которые помогают ответить на поставленные философско-антропологические вопросы. Эти основания обозначены следующим образом: 1. Борьба со Зверем; 2. Преодоление Смерти; 3. Поиск Дома. Указанная триада оснований концептуально и методологически укладывается в рамки концепции мономифа и соответствуют структуре Исход, Инициация, Возвращение. В ходе исследования мы рассмотрим эти стадии и попытаемся использовать их в философско-антропологической расшифровке кинотрилогии Риддика.

THE J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S MYTH IN THE COUNTERCULTURE OUTLOOKS IN THE WEST SOCIETY OF 1960-1970S YEARS

The article is devoted to the researching of the J.R.R. Tolkien’s (British writer and linguist) influence on the outlook of counterculture movements in 1960-1970s years. The west countries’ history of that period describes a developing of the youth protest activity and the promoting of the trilogy «The Lords of the Rings», which became the most important embodiment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology. As the result, the creativity of British writer became as the fantastic allusion to the modern and recent historical problems of society, such as the USA campaign in Vietnam, world wars, consumption cult, the harm to the environment, the fight for civil rights, etc. The purpose of that article is to identify the role of J.R.R. Tolkien’s myth in the ideological forming of youth movements of the mentioned time period in the USA and West Europe of 1960-1970s years. Through the prism of that interaction authors reconstruct a layer of counterculture mythology with the merging of Tolkinism’s (the writer’s creativity and outlook) and protest ideas inside the original awareness. The result of this process is in the appearance of the new youth movements’ ideological aspects, reflected in slogans, sings and street art of the pointed time period. The embodiment of the young generation’s protest activity with fictional heroes and events in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth has the main role in such aspects. However, today there is lack of the researching of that problem. Authors of the article suggest to look at the counterculture’s history in west countries through the prism of the pointed synthesis as the one of basically elements in the formation of modern mass culture and subculture layer.