Beyond the future: Fortune telling as constituted in the media

Abstract

This paper utilizes discourse analysis (DA) to research how fortune telling is constituted in the news media. As current paranormal belief research is largely inconclusive (Wiseman & Watt, 2006), this paper addresses the problem of constitution as outlined by discursive psychologists (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) and seeks to better understand how paranormal objects, using fortune telling as an example, are constructed. After analyzing forty-three news articles regarding fortune telling, this paper argues that fortune telling is constituted of several mundane themes that are not reliant upon the consideration of paranormal attributions as real or fake. It further explains that fortune telling is a more complex object than it is currently treated as in parapsychological research.