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Abstract: Traditionally mythical thought has been banished and considered less important than logical thinking. However, in the last decades several authors have claimed the need to revalorize this notion. From our perspective, myth is a key concept to explore the construction of meaning in media narratives. For instance, if we try to solve fundamental questions as what communication is or how media make meaning, we should take into consideration the epistemological scope of myth. This article's main objective is to prove that the co-implication between logos and mythos is essential to understand social communication and mediated culture. Thus, to avoid any kind of reductionism, it is necessary to establish a dialogue between the two forms of thinking and expression: the concept and the imagination.
Keywords: Myth, communication, mediated culture, ritual, narration
Introduction
This paper deals with the conceptualization of myth and its importance in the mediated culture. We propose a theoretical and analytical approach to myth, as a fundamental issue to understand the basis of social communication. First of all, we will try to make a conceptualization of the complex notion of myth and we will explore its particularities. This is supported, fundamentally, by the contributions of Mircea Eliade (1973), Joseph Campbell (1993), Kurt Hübner (1996), Lluís Duch (2002) and Hans Blumenberg (2003). Secondly, we will express the connection between myth, ritual and narrative, different questions that are crucial to understand mediated communication. Thirdly, we will underline the role of myths in everyday life and in the construction of identities. Fourthly, we will give special emphasis to the logo-mythical approach, a theoretical perspective that co-implicates mythos and logos, as two parts of the same process. And finally, we will highlight the theoretical importance of the mythological and the imagination in the study of mediated culture and communication.
Towards a conceptualization of the polysemic notion of myth
Our main premise is that myth is not a simple reality because, as Mircea Eliade (1973, p. 18) has pointed out, it appears in very complex cultural contexts and never allows univocal and linear readings about it. This means that this notion can be interpreted from multiple and complementary perspectives. Indeed, from a psychological approach (Jung, 2011) myths are considered elementary ideas, while from a historical-ethnographic point of...