Mass culture/popular culture debate in cultural studies essay

Mass culture/popular culture debate is considered to be one of the most disputable and polemic areas in cultural studies. By a simple definition, mass culture or popular culture is viewed as the culture that is prevalent in the general population of a given society[1]. The concept of mass culture includes different things, such as sports, entertainment, lifestyle, music, including pop-music, literature, media, visual arts, including biennale, etc.[2]

The content of popular culture is caused by daily events, desires and needs that make up the majority of the world’s population (the so-called mainstream). The term “mass culture” has emerged in the 40s of the 20th century in the texts of M. Horkheimer and D. MacDonald, who criticized television[3]. What is more, the term became widespread thanks to the efforts of the representatives of the Frankfurt school of sociology. One of the major distinctions of mass/popular culture is that it is opposite to the traditional culture (“high” or “elite” one).

Specialists argue that popular culture prevails in modern society and appeals to the ordinary consciousness[4] . In this case, popular culture does not require special knowledge and skills for its assimilation. A distinctive feature of popular culture is its focus on the leisure activities, and thus its main function is entertaining[5].

The development of popular culture is closely associated with the emergence of urban culture, when in the major cities of the ancient world, like Babylon, the forms of entertainment, such as a representation of gymnasts, jugglers, street singers and dancers have been widely-distributed[6].

The flourishing of popular culture is the era of modern times, when it finds its protector in the face of poorly educated bourgeoisie[7]. Popular culture is historically preceded by a mass culture, but it continues to co-exist with it in the modern cultural space. Specialists point out that popular culture is distinguished from mass one by the lack of its original focus on the commercial industry[8]. Popular culture is much closer than the mass one, to the images, language, and the ideals of popular culture, truly reflects the myths and guidance of the national consciousness. Today, pop culture includes music, animation, literature, fashion, cooking, advertising, sports, tourism, design, and many other items[9].

Furthermore, popular culture is sometimes viewed as a specific ideology. According to Fiske, ideology is considered to be “a dynamic process constantly reproduced and reconstituted in practice – that is, in the ways that people think, act, and understand themselves and their relationship to society”[10].

“Mass culture” is the concept in cultural studies that generally expresses the state of the bourgeois culture of the mid-20th century[11]. In broader terms, the concept of “mass culture” used in cultural studies in order to identify the specific types of “spiritual” production, based on an “average” consumer, and to assume the possibility of wide replication of the original product[12]. The concept of “mass culture” reflects the significant shifts in the mechanism of bourgeois culture: the development of mass media – radio, Hollywood films, television, giant circulation of magazines and newspapers, cheap “pocket” books, records, discs; the relative democratization of culture, higher education of the masses;  increasing leisure time and the cost of leisure time in the average family budget[13].

British Cultural Studies, which provides the information on the media and mass culture, states the following:

… the media were held to be largely reflective or expressive of an achieved consensus. …the media largely reinforced those values and norms which had already achieved a wide consensual foundation. Since the consensus was a ‘good thing’, those reinforcing effects of the media were given a benign and positive reading”[14].

Thus, through a system of mass communication, mass culture covers the vast majority of the members of society. Through a single mechanism of fashion it directs and subordinates all the aspects of human existence: from the style of housing and clothing to the type of hobby, from the choice of the ideological orientation to the forms and rituals of intimate relations. It claims for the whole coverage and subordination of culture around the world, its cultural “colonization.”

Nowadays, mass culture permeates almost all the aspects of society and forms its single semiotic space. Specialists point to the major manifestations and trends of mass culture that are the following[15]:

• Industry “subculture of childhood”;
• Mass Secondary School;
• A system of national (state) ideology;
• Mass political movements;
• Entertainment and leisure, which includes a mass artistic culture (except architecture), the mass-staged spectacular performances, professional sports, a variety of different shows;
• Leisure and health industry;
• System of organization, promotion and management of consumer demand for the items, services, ideas, both individual and collective use (advertising, image-making, political technology);
• Various game systems from mechanical games, electronic consoles, computer games, etc. to virtual reality systems;
• Folklore (fairy tales, legends, epics, etc.) and science (in its “lite” version) are also considered to be an integral part of mass culture.

Thus, mass culture is not a homogeneous phenomenon. It has its own structure and levels. In contemporary cultural studies[16], as a rule, there are three basic levels of mass culture:

1. kitsch-culture (i.e., low-standard, even vulgar culture);
2. mid-culture (the culture of “mediocrity”);
3. art culture (mass culture that has a certain, sometimes even higher, artistic content and aesthetic expression).

However, Fiske supporting Baudrillard’s statement that the media has created both meanings and for that matter the social, to disappear says as follows: “Information devours its own contents. It devours communication and the social for two reasons. Instead of communication it exhausts itself in the act of staging the communication. Instead of producing meaning it exhausts itself in the staging of meaning”[17].

It depersonalizes people, does not take into account the needs and tastes of small social groups, especially the individual. Despite the enormous popularity of the media and pop culture, it imposes on us the stereotype of a beautiful, delicious and glossy life.

Taking everything into consideration, it is possible to conclude that mass and popular culture leads to standardization and social degradation of the population. Mass culture is the concept that characterizes the features of the production of cultural values ​​in our modern society, designed for mass consumption. The cultural patterns, codes, styles and fashions come to a person through the mechanisms of mass and popular culture. In addition, the concept of mass and popular culture includes the different norms of behavior, work culture, popular science and art – all the things that makes people’s daily lives. The rapidly developing means of mass communication have a significant impact on contemporary mass and popular culture. Thus, despite the democratic nature of modern society, the problem of ideological influence through the mass media not only did not lost its relevance, but also acquired a new meaning due to the globalization of mass media and, consequently, the ability to influence the international political relations.

Another important tendency in the development of popular and mass culture is that it became a major source of identity construction, thereby influencing the people’s minds[18]. The mass and popular culture not only offers the individual a set of behavior patterns and lifestyles in the context of a weakening of social ties and social control over his/her daily life, but also constantly updates this set, prompting the individual to “try” the new identities and construct the “disrupt” or “fluid” identity that is distinctive for the postmodern man[19]. It is not surprising that becoming a creator of pop-cultural products, such an individual reproduces and represents himself/herself in his/her creations, thereby stimulating his/her audiences also look for the new styles and fashions for consumption.

Mass culture is more convincing because it has the widest audience, and is authorial. It meets the immediate demands of the people responding to any new event in the life and reflects it. Therefore, specialists argue that “products” of mass culture quickly become unpopular due to the mismatch of the current situation[20]. Mass culture can be viewed as a universal product; its authors focus on an “average” consumer. It distributes the most basic and universal values.

Thus, taking the above-mentioned information into account, it is possible to draw a conclusion that mass and popular culture in all its manifestations covers all the aspects of human life in society, determining a person’s way of life, thinking and behavioral style and remaining a major fact of social reality. Therefore, despite the polarity of the assessments of the role of popular and mass culture in our society, mass production, distribution and consumption of cultural products are an integral part of modern civilization.