Popular culture/Mass Culture.

Conservative view 'Right wing'

Mass culture as a consumer product.

It is for the mass of the people, the majority of the population, as contrasted to the 'elite' culture
of the 'highbrow` minority section of the population. Mass culture, popular culture, is seen as
offering ready-made material for consumers to buy. So, in the West we are surrounded by mass
culture purveyed for us by capitalist organisations all seeking to make profits from the
consumption of the mass market.

Replacing existing cultures

Mass culture by the end of the twentieth century is seen as having largely replaced existing
cultures that the people had. So the idea of 'working-class culture' has been lost. This view of
mass culture presupposes that the ready-made product which is purchased rather than produced
from within the family or the community or the social class has replaced indigenous culture, such
as that mentioned above, working class culture, and traditions and 'folk culture', and has
disempowered the people, making them more passive, less involved in creating things for
themselves.

So, in cookery, food is now purchased pre-prepared (Junk food' 'fast food') and people make
their own meals from the raw ingredients far less than they used to. Music is largely experienced
as a passive listener. People do not join in community singing or make their own family music at
home, - and of course attendance at religious worship has declined so that even church singing or
hymn singing is rare.

Passive experiences
have replaced active ones in this conservative view of mass culture. People watch sports (on TV
mainly) rather than participate in sports (especially after they have left school). They sit in the
cinema rather than take part in community activities such as folk dancing or craftwork. Television
presupposes a passive audience. People think about TV characters and talk about such
programmes as soaps, rather than meeting real people and talking about them as they might have
done in the past in village life. Advertising reaches an uncritical mass public from the hoardings
and the television sets, and consumerism is the guiding force of mass culture.

Consumption
In this conservative view of mass culture, consumption is the main feature of the mass market
lifestyle. The mass media are to blame for 'brainwashing' the people. In this view, from the
consumerism and passivity of popular mass culture come a number of social evils such as the
break up of community life and community responsibility, the devaluation of family life and the
increasing fragmentation of families, irresponsible, anti-social behaviour of people, especially
young people, and lack of care for the weaker members of society.

At the extreme, mass culture may be blamed for the increase in violence in society and for social
evils such as drug abuse. The effects of mass culture are then extended in this view to account
for the disaffection of the working class Industrial problems, disputes, dissatisfaction with their
position in society, greed and acquisitiveness are all blamed in this conservative, right wing, view
upon the baseness of the influence of mass culture.
Popular culture - Radical Left

Those who formulated this perspective on popular culture in an academic way are usually collectively referred to
as The Frankfurt School. They include such writers as T. Adorno, H. Marcuse and M. Horkheimer. Many
of them were fugitives to America from Hitler's Germany. Most took up academic posts in America where the
theory of mass society and mass culture was developed. These writers, like the ones discussed capitalism, and for
reasons which at first sight appear similar.

Working class - dynamic and progressive

They believe that the working class was once both dynamic and progressive However, the capitalist system has
made that class soul-less and one-dimensional. Traditional centres of authority, like the family, have been replaced
by the state and by big business. These provide a schooling system, lifestyle and entertainments which make the
working class passive, uncritical, unthinking. Believing they are free, people are really manipulated. Believing
they are happy, people are really in a 'euphoria of unhappiness'. In a sense this theory is a more complex
elaboration of the idea that the working class are pacified by 'bread and circuses'. The rulers believe of the working
class that all they need do is keep their bellies full and their minds busy with entertainment and they won't give
any trouble: 'The hypnotic power of the mass media deprive us of the capacity for critical thought which is
essential if we are to change the world' (Marcuse).

The Frankfurt school sees the modem equivalent of bread as being all the consumer items that modem capitalism
can provide. The circuses are the many elements which collectively comprise mass culture; page 3 girls, Royalty,
TV stars, football, soap operas, and soon. Those in authority within capitalism are able to propagate a myth of
freedom and the illusion of choice. The masses are kept happy. They do not recognise the repressive nature of
their freedom

Media titillation
The radical left argue that the main function of the media is to titillate and entertain, so that the attention and
interests of the working class are diverted from serious issues such as their exploited position in modern
capitalism. The extensive coverage of 'The Royals' does this particularly well. List other topics which appear
regularly in the media (both printed and broadcast) which could be said to perform this function. What
arguments could he used again the view that their purpose is to pacify the working class by keeping them
'happy'?

The contradictions of permissiveness

We can illustrate these ideas by looking at the concept of 'the permissive society'. It is usually said about the
1960s that they were years which marked the beginning of new freedoms. People could, for the first time, explore
their sexuality and other previously repressed desires. Fashion and other styles were liberated from the constraints
under which they had operated in the past. However, the concept of 'permissiveness' contains all sorts of internal
contradictions. It implies that someone is allowing ('permitting) freedom. But, freedom, is not really freedom if it
is merely sanctioned by some higher authority, perhaps temporarily. For the Frankfurt school the sexual
liberation of the 60s and later is an integral part of mass culture. Modem sexuality is not real sexuality. it is in a
form which Marcuse refers to as 'repressive desublimation'. To sublimate something is to repress it. To
desublimate it is, therefore, to give it expression. But repressive desublimation, an apparent contradiction in
terms, means to give expression to, for example, sexuality, in a repressive way. An illustration would be the
trivial sexiness and superficial eroticism expressed in the advertising world and 'M Sunday Sport.

The aim of all this repression disguised as liberation is to keep the people passive and feeling content. The
working classes are potentially a revolutionary force, capable of overthrowIng capitalism. The way to stop them
doing so is to give them material well-being and the illusion of freedom. The mass media, the welfare state and
the consumer society are all crucial in this effort.

Here, then, is the important difference between the conservative right and the radical left. The first sees the natural
state of the working class as contented and static. The second sees it as discontented and dynamic. The first sees
capitalism as disrupting this natural state by causing unease and discontent. The second sees it as repressing the
natural state by creating a sense of case and well-being.