3.1.2
Mass Culture
Mass Culture
Mass Culture
The terms mass, popular and low culture are often used interchangeably to refer to the same type of culture in slightly different ways.
Mass culture
Mass culture
- Mass culture refers to commercial, mass produced culture and is, again, contrasted with high culture.
- Examples of mass culture include products such as ‘red top’ tabloid newspapers, TV soaps and reality shows, popular music, video games, blockbuster movies and websites like Twitter and Facebook.
Features of mass culture
Features of mass culture
- Mass culture has a number of features that distinguish it from other forms of culture:
- The product of industrialised societies.
- Standardised, short-lived products, designed to appeal to ‘the masses’ rather than being set aside as special.
Features of mass culture cont.
Features of mass culture cont.
- Products are inauthentic, in that they are produced by businesses for profit in consumer societies (in contrast to the products produced with folk cultures).
- Demands little critical thought, analysis or discussion, that is, products have no lasting intellectual or artistic value.
Strinati
Strinati
- Strinati (a post-modernist) argues that mass culture as popular culture, having value and worthy of study and rejects the view that there is a single mass audience and mass culture, suggesting that people critically chose from a wide variety of options on offer.
Livingstone (1988)
Livingstone (1988)
- Livingstone (1988) found that writers and producers of TV soap operas saw them as educating and informing the public by raising and commenting on important or controversial social issues.
Mass Culture: The Marxist Perspective
Mass Culture: The Marxist Perspective
The terms mass, popular and low culture are often used interchangeably to refer to the same type of culture in slightly different ways.
Mass culture
Mass culture
- Mass culture refers to commercial, massed produced culture and is, again, contrasted with high culture.
- Examples of mass culture include products such as ‘red top’ tabloid newspapers, TV soaps and reality shows, popular music, video games, blockbuster movies and websites like Twitter and Facebook.
Marxist perspective
Marxist perspective
- Marxists, such as Bourdieu, argue that mass culture (and, to an extent, popular culture) is only regarded as inferior when compared to high culture because the dominant class has the power to impose its own ideas of ‘good taste’ on the rest of society.
Marketing
Marketing
- Some Marxists argue that the culture industries produce mass cultural products with little artistic merit in order to make a profit and then manipulate people through marketing and advertising into wanting them.
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
Jump to other topics
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
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