The place of myths in ancient
communication systems is well understood.
But myths not only remind us of old times.
Myths transform over time and persist
to inform the structure of
contemporary mass culture.
What is their semiotic capacity?
Myths translate
complicated messages into concise and comprehensible form
for consumers of
commercials, movies, sports, and music.
My PhD research explores structural units
of myth
which are a key to the study of mass culture communication.
From one side,
myth consists of mythologemes which are universal images.
For instance, there is
the mythologeme of Fate, the Mythologeme of Course,
the mythologeme of World Tree, the
World Catastrophe, the Mother Nature to name a few.
From another side, myths are
structured by mythemes.
Mythemes are universal sequences of events, like the mytheme of Transformation and
the mytheme of Backtracking.
The description of
the structural units that are mythologies and mythemes assist in understanding
of mass culture communication.
