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The Black Ambulance : Here it Goes Again. Hoaxes, Rumours, Conspiracies.

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020

Abstract

The publication presents annotated collection of 162 contemporary prosaic folkloric narratives documented in Czech language both in oral and digital, especially Internet transmission. The main folklore genres included are contemporary (urban) legends and rumours, internet hoaxes and fake news, conspiracy theories and to less extent also folk beliefs and children's scary stories.

The collection contains narratives collected by the author, his students and collaborators from several dozens of informants of various age, gender, educational and professional backgrounds in 2008-2020 on territory of the Czech Republic, as well as on the Czech Internet. Main method for documenting data was folkloristic fieldwork conducted both in face-to-face interaction and digital realm, followed by content analysis.

All narratives are supplemented with details about informants and/or their sources, and selected texts also with their historical background, international parallels and folkloristic, psychological and sociological intepretations of their texts and contexts.