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Chapter 11: Conceptualising Mass Society (The culture and society…
Chapter 11: Conceptualising Mass Society
Contexts: mass society, mass media and social change
development of mass media in Western societies in the beginning of the 20th century-key characteristics:
urbanisation
development of innovative and increasingly efficient technologies
population growth
shift from agriculture to the factory system
social struggles (often violent and vehemently resisted by the powerful) enabled the growth and spread of democracy and social, economic and working conditions began to improve-> increased power of the masses
Theories of Mass Society
McQuail claims that the dominant concept of 'mass' connotes mainly a negative view of large, aggregated, undifferentiated social constructs that lack order
at their heart, theorists of mass society shared a belief that industrialisation, capitalism and democracy itself had changes society from a set of relationships between individuals in small communities to one where any sense of individuality had been lost in the alienation athmosphere of the modern city and the factory system
the new forms of communication (particularly cinema and broadcasting) were seen as part of this process of 'massification'
3 main theories of mass society
US
UK: Leavis
The Frankfurt School
The culture and society tradition
Arnold criticised all social groups of the new mass society for their materialism and failure to protect and benefit from the great cultural achievements of the past
Leavis disliked what he saw as the superficiality and inauthenticity of modern 'mass' life and popular culture that developed in his own time
Leavis's view: in pre-industrial society people participated in a shared 'organic' culture that was destroyed by the advent of 'mass' society
Arnold: 'Culture is the best that has been thought and said'-> used by Leavis and the Frankfurt School as a label for identifying attainment in fields such as fine art, classical music literature and dance-> High culture & authentic folk culture vs. popular culture
Leavis saw mass society as an American phenomenon based upon ideas of individual, lowest-common-denomination cultural ideals served by commercial interests
Leavis offered a cultural programme, which did not have an explicit political dimension, although his politics have often been interpreted as reactionary and anti-democratic
For Leavis and his associates, mass society was a worrying development, most obviously linked to American society that needed to be resisted through education and attention to traditional forms of culture
The American context
American mass society theory is rooted in 2 important areas
development of social sciences
positivism: belief that the scientific method and results are in some way 'objective', untainted by culture and social position of the researcher
people saw media research as valid
moral panic about certain versions of modern society and culture among intellectuals
This perspective on mass society represented a different sense from those found in continental Europe, which were not wholly negative
American cultural theorists like Macdonald counter-posed the idea of a pluralist society- heterogeneous and based upon individual rights- with that of a mass society
widespread fear of authoritarian ideas
For the social scientists of the American tradition, mass society was a phenomenon that needed to be measured and calculated so that appropriate social policy antidotes could be identified and applied
The Frankfurt School
heavily influenced by Marxist theory
as a group, the School is associated with the concept of critical theory
it seeks to evaluate the terms and claims of society (just as Marx)
self-conscious theory in which the thinkers seek to recognise their own position and interests as they affect their objectivity or insight
sought to deal with philosophical limits and problems of Marxism through the Soviet Union
defining the culture industry
culture industry: those organisations involved in the economic rationalisation, organisation and exploitation of entertainment, cultural or aesthetic work to generate profit and to maintain the operation of a market system
high degree of choice in US entertainment
upon closer critical inspection, this pluralism and liberty was a deception that was particularly structured into this field of entertainment on the basis of a desire for profit and thus an alignment with capitalist business methods and values, all aimed at generating and maintaining profit
media were viewed as sites that involved rationalisation (organisation, streamlining accoriding to repeated principles) and industrialisation of culture to the point at which it became an agent of the very system of exploitation-> epitome of the dominant social group
the term is intentionally oxymoronic
authentic culture
defined by pre-capitalist forms that ordinary people created and maintained themselves or high culture
one of the merits of art work for Adorno is, literally, its difference from the uniformity of the status quo and the world in which we exist
Features of the culture industry
standardisation and pseudo-individualisation
simple formulae
the main themes in media that are constantly repeated reiterate the aspects of the ideology of bourgeois capitalism
the undifferentiated character of the products of the cultural industry (its massness) reproduces the audience in its own image
every audience reaction is predetermined
the products of the culture industry induce in their consumers a feeling of catharsis
commodified form of leisure
this form of culture does not lead to enlightenment of freedom the way culture proper does
commodity fetishism
Marx discussed how mass-produced products took on particular identities in the marketplace, where competition over price takes place
items acquire a worth that does not necessarily convey the production process and therefore appear before us as if by magic
Marx's use of ''fetish'' is derived from some religions, in which objects are invested with supernatural properties and worshipped
in the culture industry: the products are sold to us on the basis of their cost price and the value that they generate, both of which are divorced from any interest in an evaluation of their cultural meaning and qualities (films are marketed by using their budget & their box office earning)
Who are 'the masses'?
mass culture (produced for the masses and which produces massness) vs. popular culture (accounts for what people do with mass-produced products and acknowledges that they are produced in a context in which producers and consumers share aspects of culture)
left-Leavism/ culturalism
2 parts to their approach
detailed cultural analyses of ordinary people's lives
ordinary people were active in the making of their own culture, even if it was set amidst the forces of history, mass culture and society
Raymond Williams
no one who ever thinks of people as masses includes themselves in that category
culture is ordinary
The concept of culture as a whole way of like takes into account that meaning, significance and creativity are more widespread and democratic than those limited selections that make it into art galleries and libraries, for instance. It is about how people live and the way in which they make their lives and why they do what they do
Leavis: culture in common-> the elite should teach the masses what culture was
Williams' idea of a common culture is built upon the idea of 'a whole way of life' and it offered a sense of culture, not as a limited preserve of the best of art, but as a site of shared values that included recognition and validation of the lives and meanings of ordinary people