The Rise Of Mass Culture

Mass media has experienced many major developments over the past hundred years. As the manner in which media is communicated to the world evolves a definite shift to American culture has occurred in the process. Mass media has undergone numerous changes in the way it is distributed to the general public, going from newspapers, to radio, to television, and now to the World Wide Web. American culture is so ingrained in technology, that distributing mass media in this format seems like a natural step in the evolutionary process of distribution.

In this essay I intend to explore what is meant by the terms popular culture and high culture. I will also look at how the relationship between these two terms has become distorted and blurred over time. In order to reinforce what I am saying about popular and high culture I will be using a range of examples from the music industry to show how the line between high culture and popular culture has become ambiguous. I will also call upon the work of John Storey to give my work an academic foundation. Although Storey is the main academic I will be looking at, I will also include references to a number of other academics who have written about popular culture and high culture.

The influence of 1920 mass culture deserves some consideration in the shaping of the country although the commercial growth of the 1920s did not really Americanize working- class Chicagoans as deeply and as quickly as one would think. It is quite evident that mass culture by itself did not actually modernized American society in the1920s; it was more how mass culture was consumed that really had the greatest impact on ethnic workers. Despite many Americans changing the way they purchased goods and services, nowhere was that change more evident than in the middle class communities. On the contrary workers from the manufacturing sectors did not benefit equally from the growing wealth during the 1920s. The decade had failed to remove economic uncertainty with unemployment remaining high and the fear of not finding a job or losing a job forcing workers to focus on economic security rather than spending.

Mass media is communication that reaches a large audience. This includes television, advertisement, the Internet, newspapers, and so on. Mass media is a significant effect in modern culture in America. It creates ideas and sustained within society not only send ideological messages out to the public but to advertise this ideas which are tend to manipulate our mantalities.

What was the new mass culture that developed in the 1920's and what were the specific elements of it.

Manifestations of Mass Culture in the 1950’s such as Consumerism, Suburbia, Materialism, were seen as a new prosperity combined with a “buy now pay later” attitude began in America. These manifestations were realized primarily as new forms of entertainment were disseminated to the American public through TV. 76 million Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 provided the largest generational market in American history. Marked by the end of World War 2 and bolstered by the emerging prosperity of this period a number of mass media fueled phenomenon began to grow into existence. Television, Suburbia, and Materialism lead the way for aspired to lifestyles of the American Masses. Arguably most important of these three was TV in that it provided the medium by which practically all of the manifestations of Mass Culture were disseminated among the populace. Affordable by most, by 1960 ninety percent of American households owned a TV. Supplying the medium by which both the markets and the supply side of the American economy were watching and capitalizing on, recreated and revolutionized much of the American economy. Most TV programing in the late fifties and early sixties was generally conservative and projected mainstream traditional American values. By pleasantly creeping into homes with this mainstream methodology TV became an institutional mainstay and a necessity of the American way of life.

Before we began researching on the Mass Consumer Culture of the 1920’s I already knew a little information on the Model-T, the assembly line and of “Buy now, pay later”.However, I just knew a brief information on how it impacted the 1920’s but not in depth. As we began researching I learned that the half of the nation's automobiles were bought through credit and that some department stores created credit lines for customers to buy clothing and other items. In addition, I learned that there were many different ways for advertising. This included the radio, billboards, posters and catchy slogans. After watching my peers presentation I learned that whenever I’m presenting I should be familiar with the topic I am presenting about instead of

After the Second World War, America experienced an economic boom, which has taken the country a step further towards the ideal capitalistic society. In its early developmental stages, the capitalist mode of production prolonged the Marxist discourse on constant class struggle as it was primarily criticized in terms of social inequalities. During post-war years, the initial focus of the discourse has shifted to Frankfurt School criticism of culture industry, where the standardization and commodification of cultural spheres became one of the major defects of the capitalistic system. The notion of class struggle shifted as well, to the clash of high and low cultural forms. Also known as authentic expression versus standardized product of cultural industry. Most recently, the discourse has gone through another important metamorphosis that has made advertising industry and consumerism the main forces, shaping hegemonic culture of mainstream media. The good old notion of the class struggle is currently regarded as the battle between corporate businesses and rebel oppositional forces.

The question I have posed is a very contentious one, which has been debated by scholars and graduates for some time, with many arguing that popular culture and mass media are ways of brainwashing the 'masses' into the ways of a dominant social order. Others believe that popular culture is a type of 'folk' culture which encompasses the idea of an 'alternative' culture incorporating minority groups, perhaps with subversive values sometimes challenging the dominant control groups, as was scene with the advent of the 'Indie' music scene in the mid nineteen nineties. In this dissertation I aim to uncover whether aforementioned 'subversive values' can be uncovered in popular culture or whether popular culture is really a means by which the masses can direct dominant controlling forces.

However, what is popular culture in the context of society? Popular culture is the accumulated store of cultural products that are consumed primarily by non-elite groups such as the working, lower, and middle class. Thus, popular culture involves the aspects of social life most actively involved in by the public. As the people’s culture, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: the use of slang, styles of attire, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the media; people have certain interests that appeal to them and they seek more information regarding it. Media thus helps to propagate this popular culture because in addition to reaching those who have already adopted society’s popular culture, so too can the people who have yet to be exposed to it join in. This is a phenomenon that we also see with the emergence of soccer. Soccer had first started out as a way for English elite to socialize among themselves. The inception of modern soccer was actually due to the ‘import’ of European soccer to the countries they were

Raunchiness has worked its way into pop culture through media and other forms. Which brings up the question: can raunchiness be empowering? Levy looks at how a portion of women are raunchy, and she found that its use can be almost derading to some women. This viewpoint is made obvious when she finishes her article with “[i]t is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we’ve come, or how far we have left to go” (131). Yet, there are levels of raunchiness that I believe are liberating for many groups of people, not only women.

The study of popular culture is useful in many ways. To be more specific, this course has reached its three intended main ideas: what it means to be American, how to be more consumption-conscious, and how to apply these studies in our own lives. Jim Cullen puts this in a less specific sense, arguing that the study of popular culture can “afford valuable clues – about collective fears, hopes, and debates” (Cullen, The Art of Democracy, 2). We use these clues to understand the world around us, as well as why we do what we do as Americans and as humans. I will be touching on themes that relate to this quotation by Cullen, escapism, exploitation, and globalization, as well as how these themes relate to the course goals.

In 1944, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, members of the Frankfurt School who fled from the Nazi Germany to the USA, were publishing their seminal essay ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’. Political critique, their thesis about the ideological domination of capitalism on cultural production is one that persists today and is regularly renewed (Mukerji & Schudson, 1991). Yet, since the first half of the twentieth century, evolutions have occurred within the ‘Culture Industry’, and while the theory – focusing primarily on the music and cinema industries – is still applicable to some features of contemporary ‘cultural industries’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2007), these changes require a contemporary reconsideration of it.

Popular culture is generally believed to be comprised of a variety of elements. For example, popular culture covers the most contemporary and instant aspects of our lives. These aspects can often show the characteristics of rapid change, especially in today’s highly technological and informative world in which, people are highly influenced by the universal media. Certain standards of behaviour and common beliefs are reflected in pop culture. Because of its cohesion, pop culture both influences and reflects people’s daily life. Moreover, brands can reach iconic pop status. However, these aspects are not constant and may change rapidly. (Abbott and Sapsford, 1987).

Advertising is one of the most common types of social communication and an integral element of modern mass culture. It was the product of the development of market-oriented economic culture production methods, gradually, as the development of information technology in the process of historical evolution, becoming one of the most important social institutions of modern society.