Dominates of Mass culture theory * Where democratic and egalitarian, nevertheless are highly hierarchically structured * Listening to certain forms of music or expressing a preference of certain films still identifies one as a member of the cultural elite, the political and economic elite, the descending part of the middle classes, or the working class.
* Traditional culture survives in relatively few pockets in societies that have not been touched more than superficially by global mass culture, in a perverted form as tourist attraction, and as a conscious attempt to resist the attractions of masscultures. Such secondary folk cultures are often regenerated after they had all but succumbed to invaders or to global mass culture as a conscious effort to regain some form of cultural identity. * The typical ‘ elite’ reaction to mass culture is still very much in evidence. * http://www. eolss.
net/Sample-Chapters/C04/E6-23-03-00. pdf * MASS CULTURE, POPULAR CULTURE AND CULTURAL IDENTITY * Peter Horn * University of Cape Town, South Africa * Mass culture theory holds that through ‘ atomization’ individuals can only relate to each other like atoms in a chemical compound. Individuals are vulnerable to exploitation by core institutions of mass media and pop culture * Mass culture is popular culture produced by mass production industrial techniques and is marketed for a profit to a mass public of consumers * The main determinant of mass culture is the profit that production and marketing can make from the potential mass market * Standardized, formulaic and repetitive products of mass culture are then sold to a passive audience, prone to manipulation by mass media * To sell the standard must be bland and standardized to a formula * Both folk and high art at risk from mass culture High culture is that culture associated with the well-educated portion of a society and “ lowbrow” or low culture is that culture associated with the rest of the population. * What does mass culture mean? a set of cultural values and ideas that arise from common exposure of a population to the same cultural activities, communications media, music and art, etc. * Mass culture tends to reproduce the liberal value of individualism and to foster a view of the citizen as consumer