Mass culture

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Mass culture
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High culture

• At least since the Renaissance there has been a
  concern among intellectuals over the quality of
  cultural artifacts and of the overall social
  production of cultural materials
• The belief has been that exposure to and,
  eventually, appreciation for fine art,
  literature, music, and so on would elevate the
  tastes, and moral and intellectual character of
  humankind
• In practice, the access to high culture was
  mostly limited to the elite

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High culture

• Because of the expense of production, and the
  inability to distribute exposure widely (people
  had to attend a performance, access an original
  manuscript (or a rare, expensive copy) or travel
  to where a piece of art was kept (most of which
  was not available to the public) in order to be
  exposed to high culture

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Finance

• Most art, music, etc. was financed by the wealthy
  through patronage of artists
• Michelangelo
• Mozart
• Some work for hire
• Portraits
• Lessons for the children of the wealthy

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Finance

• One area where a more free-market system was
  developed is in the book market, which exploded
  after the development of the press by Gutenberg
• Vast expansion of literate middle class
• Started with religious manuscripts but soon
  expanded to philosophy, religion, classics

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Low culture

• Throughout time it appears that common people, in
  the course of their lives, created artifacts,
  music, stories, jokes, and so on as a form of
  amusement, moral training, communion, etc.
• folk culture
• Religion is an important part of this culture

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Folk culture

• The source of most tales of this sort is lost in
  antiquity
• Often oral culture (stories passed from
  generation to generation without being written
  down)
• Original authors are unknown
• Authorship not that important
• Works evolve over time, so that the original may
  not closely resemble the current version
• Passing on the stories, music, art styles, etc.
  is part of the role of the elders of the
  community
• Children learn, as part of their education, the
  ways of the group, which include its folk
  culture

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Folk culture

• A number of authors, etc. have attempted to
  capture folk culture
• Brothers Grimm
• Canterbury Tales

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Mass culture

• With the coming of technologies of mechanical
  reproduction, the possibility of wide
  distribution of cultural artifacts at low cost
  was realized
• Book trade first
• Wide distribution of music sheets, scripts for
  plays, etc.
• Recording of music
• Motion pictures
• Broadcast

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Mass culture

• With each expansion of the mechanical ability to
  reach wider, and poorer, audiences, the hope
  among the social reformers was that aesthetic
  taste, literacy, reason and moral enlightenment
  could be expanded to the lower classes
• Mass culture would be an uplifting force in
  society

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Mass culture

• The belief was that as education spread, and
  therefore the demand for poetry, opera, and so
  on, these forms of high culture would be made
  available to everyone through mass media.
  Alexander Graham Bell first envisioned the phone
  as a means for people to receive musical
  performances or poetry readings.

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Mass culture

• Though not nearly so reflective of the wishes of
  the social reformers and intellectuals, folk
  culture also found a means of spreading widely
  through the media.
• Burlesque and popular music
• Popular magazines and paperbacks
• Wild West stories transferred to the movie screen

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Mass culture

• With the burgeoning mass media industries, a new
  form of culture was emerging that was not simply
  a mechanical extension of the other twomass
  culture
• Mass culture is culture as commodity
• Produced for sale rather than as an expression of
  spiritual or communal feelings
• No interest in education/taste improvement of the
  public
• Treated as a business, like any other, where
  investment must turn a profit or the business
  will be closed down and capital shipped somewhere
  else

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Mass culture critics

• Horkheimer and Adorno
• Displaced neo-Marxists
• Attacked popular culture for being formulaic,
  repetitive, repetitive
• Support authoritarian mindset, fascism
• Focused on popular culture of the time, big-band
  jazz

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More recent leftist critique

• Continues to see mass culture as having little
  intrinsic value
• Helps to cultivate complacency
• Uses up hard-earned leisure in mindless activity
• Cultivates an attitude of spectatorship
• Nation of spectators rather than actors, citizens

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Mass culture is

• Cheap
• Disposable
• Sensational/sleazy
• Forgettable
• Based on excitation that lasts for only a short
  time
• Devoid of real meaning

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Mass culture lacks

• Authenticity
• Emotional attachment by its creator
• Moral impact
• Ability to provide community
• Aesthetic quality
• Complexity

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Post-modernist thought

• Popular (mass) culture not in any way inferior to
  elite culture
• Camille Paglia
• Topics and presentations chosen by poor and
  working class
• Appeals to sensations, emotions
• privileging the rational/intellectual was always
  mistaken
• Brings pleasure to viewerentirely appropriate
  goal

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• Society of the spectacle
• Disconnected, decontextualized content
• The image has become more important than the
  thing itself
• People will deny the real when confronted with it
  if it does not conform to the image presented in
  popular culture
• Leaders who present appropriate spectacles rather
  than engage in wise and thoughtful policy
  development are preferred (and are better rulers)
  than less visually and emotionally eloquent but
  wise rulers

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