Beliefs and social networks: the reinvention of the popular in digital narratives

Abstract

Roland Barthes (2019) said that myth could be understood as a speech that observes certain conditions that allow it to become a myth. With this, is it possible that the digital media are favoring narrative forms where myths typical of Latin American popular culture come into force? This question finds a turning point in an ongoing investigation on myths, legends and new spiritualities in the mentalities of Latin America, for which narratives built daily in three social networks and a video channel are analyzed. Following Barthes, in this study, speech is a communicative device that meets the conditions to build myths, being that a myth "constitutes a communication system"; therefore, digital media favor forms of speech that narrate legends and recreate myths nested in the imaginary of Latin America. Without talking about results yet, this article analyzes some narratives spread on social networks that allow us to recognize in them the cultivation of beliefs that wan¬der between rationality, the emotional and magical thinking; practices that affect some of the media phenomena typical of an ethos that today defines what is popular.