Here I would like to garner attention to the Frankfurt School theorists who developed a powerful analysis of the changes in Western Capitalist societies that occurred since the classical theory of Marx. The popular entertainment business mediums like film, radio, magazine, popular music, television, and book industries are uniform and mass culture is the product of this entertainment industry. Mass culture is identical and German émigré thinkers like Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer were worried about the tendency of American culture to sink to the lowest level to market its products to consumers which created a ‘consumer culture’. They viewed complexities of high culture as an antidote to the uniformity of the mass culture. For them “Culture today is infecting everything with …show more content…
Film, radio, and magazines form a system. Each branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together” (94). Coined by the Frankfurt School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer the term “culture industry” acquired wide currency after the publication of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (1944) which they introduced in the chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. They equated popular culture to a factory producing standardised cultural goods like film radio programmes, magazines etc that are used to manipulate the mass society into passivity or inertia. People fell prey to the consumption of easy pleasures offered by the popular culture through mass communications media which made them docile and content irrespective of their economic
In Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine argues that a distinction between high and low culture that did not exist in the first half of the 19th century emerged by the turn of the century and solidified during the 20th century, and that despite a move in the last few decades toward a more ecumenical interpretation of “culture,” the distinction between high art and popular entertainment and the revering of a canon of sacred, inalterable cultural works persists. In the prologue Levine states that one of his central arguments is that concepts of cultural boundaries have changed over the period he treats. Throughout Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine defines culture as a process rather than a fixed entity, and as a product of interactions between the past and the present.
The hypodermic syringe model suggest that the media is alike a magic bullet and when an audience is targeted it will immediately be knocked down when they are hit. The hypodermic-syringe model also suggests that society is passive and the media “inject” their media influence into society and manipulates it. The Frankfurt school envisioned the media as a hypodermic syringe, and the contents of the media were injected into the thoughts of the audience, who accepted the attitudes, opinions and beliefs expressed by the media without question. This model was a response to the German fascist’s use of film and radio for propaganda, and later applied to American capitalist society. The followers of the hypodermic model of Effects adopted a variant of Marxism, emphasizing the dangers of the power of capitalism, which owned and controlled new forms of media.
Ideology is “a system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world.” (Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). According to Sturken (2001), the system of meaning is based on the use of language and images or representation. Therefore, media texts come along and select what is “normal” and what is “deviant” to the extent that this hegemony of constructed meanings in the viewer’s head becomes “common-sense” (Gramsci in Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). From this standpoint, what America claims to be pop culture which is omnipresent in media internationally, is a representation, through “politics of signification” of what is right or wrong (Kooijman, 2008). An example of America’s cultural ‘manifestation’ is Mean Girls,
The issue of the relationship between the mass media and the popular culture has always been a controversial issue in social sciences. The political economists insist on the role of the media industry in the creation of this phenomenon of the twentieth century. Though, advocates such as John Fiske, argue that popular culture is actually the creation of the populous itself, and is independent of the capitalist production process of the communication sector. Basing his argument on the immense interpretive power of the people, Fiske believes that the audience is able to break all the indented meanings within a media message. He also believes- by giving new meanings to that specific message they can oppose the power block that is trying to impose its ideology to the public. Consequently, this anarchistic activity of the audience creates the popular culture as a defence mechanism. Even when we accept Fiske’s ideas, we can not disregard the manipulative power of the media and its effects on cultural and social life.
Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...
Marxism in media criticism deals with socioeconomics and examines class system in relation to historical materialism. This methodology is used analyze and critique the development of capitalism and the role of laborer and in their economic struggles. Marxist political economy is relationships between people and classes through the patterns of media ownership for profit-motives and how it influences media business practices. An example of this is how we consume media. Both entertainment and media industries are making billions off our consumption of what we read, view, listening to and downloading. The analyses of mass media examines the relations of production under multinational capitalism. These patterns of media ownership are concentration, meaning small concentration of small industries owners that dominate their field. Conglomeration, accumulating multiple companies through mergers and takeovers. Integration, is how a business is put together by vertical and horizontal integration. Multinationalism, which is corporation’s being in multiple countries distributing products
“According to, Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms” from Media, Culture and Society, Raymond Williams and E.P Thompson summarize about the way they saw culture, they refer it to the way of life and saw mainstream media as the main role in capitalist society. “Williams says that, his perspective and ideas are referred to culture as to social practice, he saw “culture as a whole way of life” and as to structuralism that makes the concept of
O’Shaughnessy, M., Stadler, J. (2009)Media and Society: An introduction. Dominant Ideology and Hegemony. London: Oxford.
“Modern societies have much in common, but they do not necessarily merge into homogeneity”. There are many different ways that this article can be perceived. In my opinion, the argument is very convincing that Western culture is not the culture of the world. There are many cultures around the world that are highly functioning with Western influence, and the author does an excellent job of incorporating examples of these societies into his argument. Countries such as Japan are experiencing what Huntington describes as a cultural backlash.
“Culture” is a term that over the years, has taken many forms, served many purposes and has been defined in a variety of contexts. At the rise of the industrial era, inhabitants of rural areas began to migrate to cities, thus starting urbanization. As this new era began to unfold, urbanization, mass production, and modernization became key ingredients in the transformation of culture. As more people became literate and the production of mass media such as magazines, pamphlets, newspapers etc. increased, many had the option and desire to identify collectively – popular culture began to rise. Popular or “mass” culture can be described as a “dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving
The concept of mass culture emerged as a philosophical exploration of the question of modernity in relation to individual identities and individuality. As the society progressed from its traditional existence to a modern state, numerous advancements were realized that drastically changed the outlook of the society and its influence on an individual and individual thinking. One of the most important factors that have been an influence in the advancement of modernity is the mass media phenomenon (Landgraf 25). In fact, very few would contend that the institutions within the mass media franchise are crucial aspects of contemporary politics and philosophy. However, philosophers like Nietzsche and Karl Marx had the contention that the mass media had to be considered in light of its effects to the values and institutions of modern societies. Nietzsche’s criticisms is based on the general idea that the values and institutions of modern day society oppress creativity and bodily energies and limit the ability if human beings to function as individuals. This in turn blocks a generation of stronger individuals from emerging in a society that is now characterized by vigor. Friedrich Nietzsche critically appraised the modern age and developed one of the foremost sustainable critiques of mass culture and society, bureaucratic discipline, the state and regimentation. This led to the production of fresh perspectives which later deeply influenced discourse about modernity.
(McChesney 2008, p491) It cannot deny that media affect social motion, and media organizations established in order to meet the needs of society and politics. Topics around ideology, race, media ownership are most frequently discussed in scholars. The political economy of communication research procedures of media production and consumption by analyzing economic patterns, media control, and change of ownership to explain how the production of cultural commodities is bounded by economy and mainstream ideologies. ((Kunczik 1997; McChesney 2008; Mosco 2008, 2009; Wasko
The purpose of this essay is to firstly explain what John Fiske means by ‘popular culture lies not in the production of commodities so much as the productive use of industrial commodities’ (Fiske, J. 1990 p.28). Secondly this essay will go on to compare Fiske’s interpretation of popular culture to MacDonald’s theory of mass culture.
What is ideology? And how can it help our understanding of media? There are many different theories as to what ideology is, from being about people’s beliefs and how people see themselves in the world. In this essay I shall be looking at different theorists and how each of their theories helps us to understand what ideology is, and how ideology can help us to understand media.
What popular culture and mass culture are, their significance to society and how they are consumed are very multifaceted questions that have been subject to wide debate is the fields of Sociology and Cultural Studies. Many theorists have chimed in on the debate to answer these questions. Two notable theories on this topic are that of Dwight MacDonald in his work “A Theory of Mass Culture” and John Fiske in his work “Popular Culture”. MacDonald argues that mass culture is a phenomenon that is detrimental to society. He believes that although mass culture is something that produced “by and for human beings” that is ultimately is what leads to the loss of individuality and individual thought and expression in favor