Popular Culture as Mass Culture (AKA CMN 2180B - Fall 2019 - Class 2)

Building off of the definitions of popular culture that we worked with in Class 1, Classes 2 and 3 focused on understanding popular culture (and criticisms) of popular culture when viewed as a form of mass culture. But what is MASS CULTURE.

When popular culture is understood as mass culture, according to Strinati, that means that it is culture that is mass produced and mass marketed for a profit to a mass public. This definition of popular culture, as we’ll see, touches on several key debates in the field of popular culture studies, including (1) who or what determines what constitutes popular culture, (2) what happens when (popular) culture is commercialized, and (3) what is the ideological role of popular culture (which is closely related to where popular culture comes from).

** It’s important to note that mass culture - and mass culture theory - is just one perspective on popular culture**

In order to understand why criticisms of popular culture as mass culture matter, let’s first take a look at mass society theory.

The emergence of mass societies has been linked to industrialization and urbanization. With industrialization came mechanized and mass production, and with urbanization we saw people move from the rural to urban and the growth of mega-cities. Mass cultural theorists argue that the emergence of mass societies is problematic because they eroded and destablized the values that previously held society together. People, they argue, became part of an anonymous crowd.

Instead of being held together by deeply meaningful bonds, our relationships became distant, sporadic and purely contractual. This shift also coincided with the decline of traditional social institutions - like church, family, and the village - which used to be our source of information about our values, our identity, and our behaviour. But we still need to get our information, our social cues, from somewhere - and that’s where mass culture comes in.

Keeping in mind that when popular culture is viewed as mass culture, it is understood as a lower form of culture and its audiences are viewed as passive consumers, the implication here is that those who control cultural products can pander to mass society and control them. Mass society and mass cultural theorists - the so-called cultural pessimists - argue that, among other things, mass culture leaves little room for intellectual stimulation, that it debases culture to the lowest common denominator and that it encourages and celebrates consumerism.

Cultural pessimists and protectionists also link mass culture to Americanization (likely because Hollywood has traditionally been a major site of popular culture production) and the imposition of American values, ideology, and traditions onto other societies. They argue that the narrative of the “American Dream” creates unrealistic expectations and that the formulaic and repetitive nature of cultural products coming out of the U.S. has contributed to a decline in cultural standards.

Cultural optimists, however, argue that this new culture (and Americanization) isn’t all that bad. The American Dream provides hope and inspiration, and the heroes and characters portrayed in U.S cultural products like detective novels were more realistic and relatable to working class audiences (and that’s what made them popular). Cultural optimists also criticize the assertion that mass society and mass audiences are passive.

Despite similarities in the way that popular cultural products are presented, audiences are not coming just passively consuming content. Instead, what is happening is that audiences (and different members of each audience) are pulling together different icons (symbols, objects or artefacts) from popular culture that they can relate to in literally endless combination.

What this means is that just because we may all watch a specific series or set of series doesn’t mean that we’re relating to it in the same way.