Written Communication Oct 2001

The Stuff that Myths Are Made of: Myth Building as Social Action

MARY P. SHERIDAN-RABIDEAU

Abstract

This article modifies Donna Haraway's concept of (counter) myth building as a way to facilitate social action. Counter myth building, as both a resource and a process, recognizes limitations on individual agency but foregrounds the productive capacity to be more than a social and historical construct. Because myths are multiple and enactments are unpredictable, both building and enacting counter myths are at best complicated. GirlZone and RadioGirl provide two sites for investigating these complications. As grassroots projects, GirlZone and RadioGirl are explicitly devoted to building counter myths as part of an activist agenda for social change. These sites illustrate how the complex semiotic and material processes of myth building may provide potential resources for these and other activists.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2001-10-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088301018004002
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Topics
multimodality
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