engleski

Facts and Fiction in the Communication Environment of the Brave "Wild" World

For several decades, science fiction (SF) is not only profitable genre, but is also very inspiring topic in academic discussions and analysis of the various social and humanistic disciplines. One of the key issues is in which extent SF is projection of the future (Podeschi 2002), and in which extent is radicalized reflection of the current world (Lavigne 2013 ; Geiger Zeman, Holy & Zeman 2016). Podeschi (2002) considered SF movies as extremely politicized genre and certain "myths of the future" that may have a dual function: on the one hand can legitimize the current crisis, on the other can present social, cultural, political and economic alternatives that have emancipatory potential. The focus of the analysis is SF crime western series Westworld (ed. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, HBO, 2016), that was inspired with the eponymous movie from 1973 (dir. Michael Chrichton). This series that is very complex in genre sense of the word provoked ambivalent criticism, but also has thematised number of important philosophical, social and political issues that particularly highlighted issues of technology, relationships between Others and members of elite, subjectivity, individual freedom, autonomy and, finally, the meaning of life. Because of that, this popular television series calls for interpretation from the position of the structural mythical elements as well as communication content analysis with special emphasis on critique of propaganda that is visible from the discourse of series on the one side, and on the other side regarding role that this series has in spreading of the American (cultural) propaganda.

popular culture, science fiction, Westworld, structural analysis, myth, propaganda, indoctrination

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