- Project 6: 'Photography: the new reality' will be posted tomorrow -
As I have recently been introduced to Marxist cultural theory, through the course the OCA, I thought that I would do some further reading in my spare time about mass culture theory.
Before I summarise my research, I would like to state I am aware that both Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall were critical of mass culture theory. Firstly, Cultural artefacts (including) are products of industry, which are part of a wider economic and political system.
Mass culture theory began in the 1930s and 1940s and it developed as a way for critics to make sense of new mass cultural forms, a product of industrialisation e.g. cinema, radio and television. Commercial interests now governed the consumption of culture as it had become an economic activity.
Critics argued that as the conditions of production were based on a search for economies of scale, cultural forms had become standardised and homogenised. A result of this is standardised audiences responses. This rise in an audience for mass culture is usually seen as cultural decline. An example of the insidious nature of mass culture would be the cinema; its success wholly reliant on technology, through mechanical reproduction, evident through industrial production and mass distribution.
Important early theorists to this movement belonged to The Frankfurt School. For example, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer believed mass culture was dangerous politically and a threat to aesthetic standards. They felt a need to explain why Capitalism, in spite of Marx, hadn’t collapsed. The context for their pessimistic attitude towards mass culture can be seen in part as a reaction to the conditions in Germany during the 1920s and 30s. They also applied the values of European avant-garde aesthetics to the culture industry.
This culture industry, they believed, had become integrated with the capitalist economy and had transformed into a new and powerful mechanism for control.
I have made extensive notes from:
Before I summarise my research, I would like to state I am aware that both Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall were critical of mass culture theory. Firstly, Cultural artefacts (including) are products of industry, which are part of a wider economic and political system.
Mass culture theory began in the 1930s and 1940s and it developed as a way for critics to make sense of new mass cultural forms, a product of industrialisation e.g. cinema, radio and television. Commercial interests now governed the consumption of culture as it had become an economic activity.
Critics argued that as the conditions of production were based on a search for economies of scale, cultural forms had become standardised and homogenised. A result of this is standardised audiences responses. This rise in an audience for mass culture is usually seen as cultural decline. An example of the insidious nature of mass culture would be the cinema; its success wholly reliant on technology, through mechanical reproduction, evident through industrial production and mass distribution.
Important early theorists to this movement belonged to The Frankfurt School. For example, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer believed mass culture was dangerous politically and a threat to aesthetic standards. They felt a need to explain why Capitalism, in spite of Marx, hadn’t collapsed. The context for their pessimistic attitude towards mass culture can be seen in part as a reaction to the conditions in Germany during the 1920s and 30s. They also applied the values of European avant-garde aesthetics to the culture industry.
This culture industry, they believed, had become integrated with the capitalist economy and had transformed into a new and powerful mechanism for control.
I have made extensive notes from:
Bibliography:
Adorno, T.W & Horkheimer, M., 1979. ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’ From: Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 120-167. London: Verso.
Garnham, N., 1987. Concepts of Culture: Public Policy and the Cultural Industries. Cultural Studies, 1(1), pp.23-37.
Garnham, N., 1987. Concepts of Culture: Public Policy and the Cultural Industries. Cultural Studies, 1(1), pp.23-37.
Hollows, Joanne., 1995. Mass culture theory and political economy. In: J. Hollows, M. Jancovich ed. Approaches to popular film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 15-36.
Hollows, J. Hutchings, P. Jancovich, M. eds., 2000. The Film Studies Reader. London: Hodder Education, pp. 1-6.
Macdonald, D., 1964. ‘A Theory of Mass Culture’ From: Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America. Rosenberg, B. & Manning White, D. (eds.) pp. 59-73. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
Stam, Robert., 2000. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
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