The dissertation is devoted to the research of the essential characteristics of the TV series – its reflexivity, mythology character, its ability to form common meanings and normalize everyday life – and on this basis the cognitive approach to this sociocultural phenomenon was clarified. The main research interest of the dissertation focuses on the branches of sociocultural discourse of the television series and determining its specificity in comparison with television in general, on the one hand, and elucidating the features of its symbolic interpretation in the cultural space, on the other.
The relevance of the dissertation is to study the specifics of the TV series as a phenomenon of modern culture, resulting in its philosophical understanding as a semiotic and functionally self-sufficient media. The series has expanded its representative capabilities and plays an important role in cultural communication and the global society, so in self-identification of a modern individual as well. The scientific novelty of the results obtained in the dissertation is determined by the fact that as a result of the research the sociocultural discourse of television series appears not just as their theoretical understanding, but as the reflexivity of the TV series itself as a modern cultural phenomenon. This discourse manifests itself as a part of the transformation of the series and reveals their close intercourse with the media platform of the series.
The dissertation also proposes to carry out a dynamic sign’s interpretation, which distinguishes iconic, indexical and symbolic TV series. The dissertation reveals that iconic and indexical TV series circulate mainly on analog and cable television networks, and symbolic TV series predominate on digital streaming services. One of the conclusions of the dissertation is the emotionally aesthetic nature of the discourse of the TV series, creating patterns for self-identification, which together characterize the dynamics of the discourse of the TV series in the direction of increasing their reflexive feedback to their own audience and the orientation of changes in this discourse to its ever-widening coverage of various latest media as well.
The dissertation critically, in the poststructuralist sense, comprehends the mythology of the TV series as a system of exchange of meanings, which is the essence of the cultural practices in the philosophical sense. Culture is becoming increasingly a reflective system – it depends not only on how its bearers, who are also participants in its creation, comprehend what is happening around them and in themselves, but also on the fact that they necessarily have to do it. Since the myth of the series is an artificially formed message by the TV producer, its communicative interaction with the spectators is subject to a cycle of circuit of meanings. This is manifested not only in creating an atmosphere of aesthetic exchange between the participants of the communicative process, but also in the normalization and ritualization of living space (symbolic-normative function), creating an environment for fantasy experience of unconscious meanings and desires (social-compensatory function) by investing unrealized feelings in the images of TV series characters and socialization of individuals (integration function).
The dissertation argues that the TV series remains a cool media, according to the typology of Marshall McLuhan, and substantiates the institutional, symbolic and functional reasons that the TV series goes beyond television – especially in the field of modern digital media. The study established a direct correlation between the interactions of elite and mass culture on the functioning of TV series in the mode of cult and mainstream television, based on which the dynamics of transformation of interpretive practices of spectators of the TV series on the cult-mainstream-cult TV and quality-cult-mainstream TV. As a result, TV series appear as the most active, avant-garde cultural phenomenon, which promotes the decisive role of the media to the masses, not least due to the growing drift of the media towards discursiveness as their constitutive characteristics. It is highlighted the approach according to which media philosophy studies the media as a special and self-sufficient sociocultural phenomenon that determines all other sociocultural processes.
