Transformation of Sherlock Holmes Media Image in the Contemporary Mass Culture

It’s problematic to evaluate the influence of a character like Sherlock Holmes on the development of mass culture. Sherlock Holmes’ adventures were more filmed than any other. There was no generation to which literature, cinema or televisions figures did not create their image of a famous character. Nowadays, when successful TV movies are capturing the market and making great profits for their creators, a huge number of Holmes’ stories have attracted film makers or writers. The interest in Sherlock as a character prompts every generation to rethink his image, to introduce features that are characterized of a particular time. Sherlock Holmes and the development of his image is an excellent aspect to track how the people’s set of mind has changed in the historical context. Sherlock Holmes is not a socialized and human character in any of his “media incarnations”. He is always opposed to the world, he is a stranger. In our study, we will consider sequential transformation of the image of Sherlock Holmes under the influence of mass culture. First of all, we will study the features of the creation of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, we will separately pay attention to moments of the author’s life influenced changes in the image of Holmes. In the second chapter, we will analyze the stages of creating a media image of Sherlock in various historical periods. Finally, in the third part of the study, we will analyze the transformation of the qualitative features of Sherlock Holmes and the secondary characters of the saga in contemporary popular series.