Social mythology in the space of everyday life and mass media

The article gives the definition of contemporary social mythology. When considering social mythology, there are two closely related levels - «archaic» and «instrumental» («conjunctural»). For a better understanding of the social myth essence and the mechanism of its broadcast in the media environment, we need to consider it from the perspective of three subjects: living by the myth («mythical»); maker of the myth (mythmaker); critic of the myth (mythologist). The existence of the selected subjects of the myth allows us to speak about the multiplicity of its functions. Social mythology is characterized by the process of mythmaking (imprinting of social life in the form of myths, constructing of mythological stories) and mythologizing (adding mythological imagery to the social reality). Currently, the media environment is, on the one hand, a manifestation of the basic characteristics of a social myth, and on the other hand, an additional link in the process of social myth impact on society. The mass media immerse a person in a specific reality, comparable to a mythological reality with its illusions, stereotypes, and claim to show certain values intruding into everyday life. The space of everyday life is the place where functions of social mythology are mixing, the sacred and the profane intersect. The prevalence of myths in everyday life and the media environment makes adjustments in the mechanism of work of social myth and in the ratio of mythmaking and mythologizing processes. The transformation of the «sa-cred - profane» ratio under the influence of the communication space development is a matter of particular interest. All this leads to the fact that it becomes problematic to highlight the constructive functions of myth per se. The functioning of myth in the social media environment gives additional features to public life, including such its dimension as everyday life.