Anna Zalewska - Advertisement with a pop-culture star as a contemporary form of myth-pattern

This article analyses a 2004 Pepsi TV advertisement featuring female pop stars. The article shows that there is a structural relationship between television advertisements and Mircea Eliade's conception of myth-patterns. The difference is that mythical patterns, present in primitive civilisations, usually belonged to only one mythology. Today we can choose from many “mythologies” provided by the cultural market. In conclusion, there is a structural dependence between traditional religiosity and the postmodern perception of the TV message. Although the Internet seems to be the main medium, changing the perspective of the perceiver once more, the analysis presented here is still relevant. The interpretation of perception during the epoch of TV is needed to understand new media. But further research on the dominance of the Internet is nevertheless essential.

Keywords: myth-pattern, advertisement, pop star, pop culture, postmodernism