Mediální konstrukce apokalypsy: Návrat Halleyovy komety a konec mayského kalendáře optikou diskurzivní analýzy
Media Construction of Apocalypse: The Return of Halley´s Comet and the End of Mayan Calendar through the Lens of Discourse Analysis

Summary/Abstract: The research paper deals with media representation of apocalyptic predictions. It aims at describing how the apocalypse is represented/constructed in media discourse and what functions the apocalyptic predictions may perform. The theoretical background is highly interdisciplinary: the research is formed and inspired by the concepts of Carl Gustav Jung´s analytical psychology and by the historical context of the apocalyptic visions, including contemporary theories of collapse. Moreover, the paper associates classic anthropological conceptualisations of ritual, as well as the psychoanalytical/sociological notion of ontological security, with the media- apocalyptic seriality. The research paper employs a discourse analytical approach suggested by James Paul Gee, enhanced by selected Jungian categories, for in-depth comparative analysis of printed and online media texts dealing with the return of Halley´s comet in 1910 and the end of Mayan calendar in 2012. The paper suggests that – by various forms of ritualizing the apocalyptic events´ prediction – the media have the potential to symbolically revitalize the society and strengthen ontological security of its members. The objects of prediction (the comet and the calendar in this case) can actually serve as objects of projection of collectively unconscious anxieties, activated by social-political context. However, the research suggests that the media discourse on apocalypse articulates a historically invariable cause of the apocalypse – the self-destructive tendencies of the human race.

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