Social Myth in Modern Society

The article is dedicated to the social myth-making problem which became relevant again in the 21st century due to the processes of globalization and informatization, the new geopolytical balance of power and the mixed political situation. This article considers the myth as a specific way of the surrounding reality exploration, rooted in far past but manifesting its phenomenal survivability and revivability. The author focuses on the essential features of the social myth which remain in demand under modern conditions. The article also analyzes the features of the modern age which lead to extension of the functional field of the mythological consciousness. The author is guided by the huge potential of the myth as a way of the goal-directed impact on social consciousness. At that, the ambivalence of the myth and its ability to play the historically different roles in modern society is emphasized. The author is sure that without mastering the mechanism and the ways of functioning of the social myth, as well as without seizing the point of this phenomenon and the nature of the secondary ideological myth-making, it is impossible to struggle effectively with this phenomenon or manage this process successfully. Thus, this research task, on one hand, is the theoretical solution of the problem of mythological invariant and the modern transformations of the myth and, on the other hand, the identification of the practical relevance of this topic to manage the mass consciousness processes in the sociopolitical and ideological areas.