Abstract

This article is devoted to the analysis of the characteristic features of the process of displaying virtual network platforms and cybernetic technologies in the early 1970s — early 2020s in the fantastic universe (literary and cinematic) created by S. King, one of the leading American science fiction writers of our time. In this study, the authors provide a justification for the relevance and scientific novelty of the problem under study. This paper analyzes the specific features of the impact of electronic communication communities and computer technologies on modern society. This article provides an argument for the need to comprehend the coverage of this social problem in fantastic art — specifically in literature and cinematography — as one of the additional aspects of the progress of the predictive function of science. This study provides a reasoned explanation of the definition of the fantastic literary and cinematic universe of S. King as an object of research, taking into account its priority position in the fantasy genre as a whole. This problem was chosen by the authors for analysis in order to reasonably refute stereotypes, according to which the works of S. King and the film adaptations created on their basis are a complex of mass culture materials of an entertainment nature that do not have any semantic significance. At the same time, the authors explore the cardinal differences in the coverage of the studied problem in the original literary works of S. King and their film adaptations. This approach, among other things, allowed the authors to identify the reasons for the negative attitude of the writer to the embodiment of his books on the cinema screen. In this work, the specifics of the process of transformation of the display of social networks and high technologies in the fantastic universe of S. King during the 1970s and early 2020s are comprehended in the context of the author’s reaction to objective changes in scientific and technological progress and ideas about it in public opinion, as well as the growth of their importance in socio-economic, spiritual and the political spheres of life of the human community. In this study, using the example of the fantastic universe of S. King, the characteristic features of the evolution of the position of experts in the field of computer technology over the past five decades in the context of their perception in literature and cinema are also analyzed. The work also examines the moral criteria for the use of social networks and cybernetic technologies in public life and their impact on the development of modern family relations in the perception of S. King, one of the subjects of the formation of public relations in Western society.