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 the first chapter of The Rhetorical Power of Pop Culture by Deanna Sellnow, the author defines popular culture and explains the importance of studying the subject. Sellnow begins with a short explanation of ethics to convey that the influence popular culture has is not always used ethically. Secondly, Sellnow compares the different contexts of culture, elitist and diversity, to explain what popular culture is not. Popular culture is compiled of everyday things that influence people through subtle messages such as what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, and so on.

Popular culture is a little bit different from mass culture in that popular culture celebrates the common man, and mass culture wants to

Popular culture is a fusion of interest and activities that groups of people share. merely, anything that has to do with entertainment is popular culture, such as Movies, TV shows, actors, singers, toys, games, sports, clothes and the list continues. In many ways, popular culture touches every aspect of our lives. It plays such a major role in how our society views the world and how we perceive everyday things. Pop culture has a way of effect our lives no matter what we do to thwart its’ influence.

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.

The new era of technology led to major developments in the evolution of mass media, worldwide. In our society, we originally communicated orally before the Internet and wireless devices existed. Individuals relied on traditional forms of mass media, such as the television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, to attain knowledge of the outside world. Thereafter, the development of new forms mass media evolved, and we were introduced to the Internet and other wireless communication devices such as IPads and tablets, smart phones and social media sites. Regardless of the rise and fall in popularity of certain forms of mass media, the evolution of mass media influenced the American culture greatly.

In the article, “What Is Popular Culture and Why Study It,” Deanna Sellnow describes to one the importance of pop culture in our world today, how it shapes people’s identities, and the reasons they should be aware of our culture today. Whether people realize it or not, Sellnow says that pop culture screams at them from every angle of their lives. Although pop culture can be the things seen and heard in one’s surroundings, it is most prevalent through media. Movies, magazines, and music are all examples of mediated popular culture that is cheap entertainment for the enjoyment of the mass population. Many people are influenced when they tune in to the messages these things are sending. Some of these messages may challenge

The study of culture is very important to our society, as we have been studying our past and identities for as long as we can recall. Studying our cultures allows us to understand each other as a people, so we can comprehend what we have done, and possibly, what we may do. As we study American popular culture, we see something that began as almost nothing, to a group of patterns that has captured the minds of not only the American people themselves, but the whole world, as well.

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.