Non-heroic heroes: Two approaches to the analysis of media images

In the contemporary society, media ‘heroes’ are one of the most influential reference groups, which determines our perception of our own life in terms of happiness, success, justice, well-being, or, on the contrary, in opposite terms. The article is a review of two books: Salakhieva-Talal T. Psychology in Cinema: How to Make Heroes and Stories . Moscow: Alpina non-fiction; 2019. 349 p.; and Lilti A. The Invention of Celebrity. Transl. from French by P.S. Kashtanova. Saint Petersburg: Ivan Limbakh Publishing House; 2018. 496 p. The author believes that such works are necessary to broaden the horizons of the sociologist focusing on the development of social representations of happiness, justice and well-being: these works explain psychological and visual (the first book) and historical and media (the second book) prerequisites and tools for creating ‘heroes’ as role models.