Abstract

The mass media make it possible to speak about two different levels of cultural participation. Any cultural event, regardless of its significance, could be celebrated both actively and passively thanks to the mass media coverage, and both large events—such as the Olympics—as well as small, community-based local festivals, among other events of local significance, provide these two different modalities for cultural participation. The structure of this paper is as follows. First, based on sociological, anthropological, and psychological theories of ritual, I will develop an analytical framework for the study of celebration. Second, I will translate this scheme into semiotic terms. Third, I will suggest how the semiotic text of active cultural participation differs theoretically from the discursive text of passive cultural participation.