They are considered historical forms of mass culture. Mass culture

There are quite contradictory points of view on the question of the time of the emergence of “mass culture”. Some consider it an eternal by-product of culture and therefore find it already in ancient times. There are much more grounds for attempts to connect the emergence of “mass culture” with the scientific and technological revolution, which gave rise to new ways of producing, distributing and consuming culture. Bourgeois “mass culture” first formed in the USA. On the one hand, this democratized the sphere of culture, on the other hand, it contributed to the penetration of commercial, political interests, and the pursuit of profit into this sphere.

American sociologist D. White believes that the first elements of mass culture include, for example, Roman gladiator fights, which attracted numerous spectators. According to A. Adorno, the prototypes of modern mass culture should be considered the forms of culture that appeared during the formation of capitalism in England, that is, at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. He is convinced that the novels written during this period (Defoe, Richardson) were intended for the market and had a clear commercial orientation. Consequently, they gravitated towards “mass” rather than “elite” culture. However, Russian opponents (E. P. Smolskaya and others) point out that these works did not contain well-known templates that are characteristic of works of mass culture.

Probably, the starting point in the emergence and development of mass culture should still be considered late XIX- beginning of the 20th century.

In Europe, "mass culture" ( folk entertainment, the art of jugglers, mimes) has always opposed the official culture, which was controlled by the state and the church. In the USA, “mass culture” initially promoted stereotypes and ideas official culture, the main regulator of which was advertising. " Mass culture"has become such an integral part of the culture American society, his cultural consciousness that its study exceeds in the system, for example, of American higher education. 56% training courses in the USA are devoted to the study of “popular” types of culture (courses on television, cinema, advertising, journalism). In England, the university education system includes special courses that include materials from film culture, music, science fiction and even football. In America, “mass culture” has acquired a dual character: the American mind, which is not occupied with practical concerns, remains at rest, while the other part of it is occupied with discoveries, production and social organization. The American will is embodied in the skyscraper, the American intellect is embodied in colonial buildings.

What is “mass culture”? As in the case of traditional culture, a universal definition of mass culture still does not exist. This situation has its own rational explanation. The fact is that, as a scientific and philosophical category, “mass culture” includes three concepts. Firstly, “culture”, as the special nature of the product. Secondly, “mass”, as the degree of distribution of the product. Thirdly, “culture” as a spiritual value.

One of the most interesting and productive is the approach to the definition of “mass culture” by D. Bell, according to which mass culture is a kind of organization ordinary consciousness in the information society, a special sign system or a special language in which members of the information society achieve mutual understanding.

Nowadays, mass culture penetrates almost all spheres of social life and forms its own unified semiotic space.

Obviously, mass culture is far from a homogeneous phenomenon. It has its own structure and levels. In modern cultural studies, as a rule, there are three main levels of mass culture:

* kitsch culture (i.e. low-grade, even vulgar culture);

* mid-culture (so to speak, the culture of the “middle hand”);

*art culture (mass culture, not devoid of a certain, sometimes even high, artistic content and aesthetic expression).

When analyzing mass culture as a special socio-cultural phenomenon, it is necessary to indicate its main characteristics. These characteristics, in my opinion, are:

* targeting a homogeneous audience;

* reliance on the emotional, irrational, collective, unconscious;

* escapism;

* quick availability;

* easy to forget;

* traditionalism and conservatism;

* operating with the average linguistic semiotic norm;

* entertaining.

“Mass culture” pays special attention to the topic of aggression. The brutality of the scenes of violence on the screen impresses the performance both in quantity and in its naturalness. The merits of this or that action film are often assessed in proportion to the number of corpses - visual violence beckons like a drug. An explanation for this fact is given on the basis of the philosophy of S. Freud. Since culture oppresses the natural principle in a person, instincts, he is forced to look for the illusory realization of his unsatisfied passions in art. This is why there is so much sex and aggression in “mass culture”. Another favorite topic is fear: such genres of popular culture as thriller, horror film, disaster film, etc. exploit this topic very actively. As a result, the human psyche, “tempered” by modern mass culture, becomes less sensitive to what is happening in reality. A person gets used to murder and violence. Mental indifference today is becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Before the emergence of technological society, man was connected with nature; thanks to religion, he felt like an organic part of the world and, in constant communication with others, drew vital energy. In a modern artificial world, surrounded by concrete, steel and glass industrial civilization Man's connection with higher powers, with the organics of nature and with other people was narrowed to an absolute minimum and, left in the vacuum of his loneliness, man began to need “drugs” much more than ever before. Moreover, the world has become so overcomplicated that it has become pointless to try to understand it. But there's a need to fill inner world was saved and this request could not be answered traditional forms escape from reality - alcoholism, drugs, sexual sphere, especially since these forms of escapism (escape from reality) are considered an anomaly, and the only acceptable form of escapism has become art that transforms reality into aesthetically acceptable forms.

When the masses came to the forefront of history, the entire civilized world, regardless of the political system of each country, was faced with the question of how to control these millions and direct their energy in a direction that was safe for power.

The culture of previous centuries could not be used; the ideas it contained contradicted the tasks that the authorities set for themselves, and was too complex; it required many years of education.

Culture, like science, cannot exist without a customer; in the words of Scott Fitzgerald, “culture follows the money.” The new masters of life ordered music from performers and armed them with new technical means.

New technologies made it possible to simplify culture and make it accessible to wide consumption. As one of the customers, Lenin, said, “The most important of all arts for us is cinema, because our population is mostly illiterate.”

Radio, cinema, and then television, the very nature of these new technical means made ideas, images traditional culture, and provided innumerable opportunities for the gradual replacement of a broad vision of the world with that flat, one-dimensional world that is understandable to the viewer and necessary for the customer.

A film lens takes out a fragment determined by the director from real life, separates it from everything else with a frame and, as a result of editing images, creates a picture of the world that corresponds to the tasks that its creator sets for himself.

The television screen creates a window in huge world, narrowing its multidimensionality to a few tens of centimeters of a flat image, and this is no longer the volumetric reality of the world, but its pale, simplified copy, devoid of the broad content of the original.

Another Soviet ideologist, Arbatov, thus defined the tasks for the creators of proletarian mass culture - “... the artist is imbued with the idea of expediency, processing the material not to please subjective tastes, but according to the objective tasks of production, ... artists become collaborators with engineers and scientists , administrators. Organize a common product guided not by personal motives, but by the objective needs of production, completing class assignments..."

“Objective needs of production” - to distract the masses from the real problems of their lives and force them to see the world the way the customer wants it.

“Mass culture, compensating for the feeling of helplessness of the average person, creates images of supermen, overcoming those obstacles that in practice are insurmountable, winning where the average person inevitably faces defeat. Supermen do not go to work from nine to five, do not tremble in front of their superiors, are not afraid, that tomorrow they will be fired without any explanation... They have no problem paying monthly bills. Supermen single-handedly solve all social problems, in a simple and understandable form - often with physical force. These fairy tales do not reduce stress, but at least for a while , before going to sleep, bring a state of sweet slumber." Alexander Zinoviev.

The Nazis burned books in the streets and squares, Soviet authority books rotted in library archives, which aroused public interest in forbidden knowledge. The market makes it more effective way- it instills indifference to knowledge.

Ray Bradbury was afraid that the state would ban reading books. Aldous Huxley feared something else, that conditions would be created in which people would no longer want to read books. But they were both wrong; today they read much more than before.

Today, 1,500 daily newspapers and 7,000 weeklies are published. 75,000 new books are published annually. This is primarily entertainment literature, and there is a mass demand only for it, for “hamburger” type literature, for informational chewing gum simplified to the level of mass taste, “literature for the poor.”

And, at the same time, serious literature that poses pressing social problems never reaches even 10 thousand copies. They are mainly acquired only by universities; they are included in learning programs many colleges, thousands of students have read these books, but this does not change anything in their attitude to the existing status quo.

Based on the first point, we can conclude that the essence of “mass culture” lies in the influence of “mass culture” on a person’s consciousness, his attitude to reality and spiritual sensibility. The reason for the emergence of “mass culture” was the need of the authorities to control millions of masses and direct their energy in a direction that was safe for the authorities. Nowadays, mass culture penetrates almost all spheres of social life and forms its own unified semiotic space.

By the nature of creations one can distinguish the culture represented in single samples And popular culture. The first form, based on the characteristic features of its creators, is divided into folk and elite culture. Folk culture represents single works, most often by nameless authors. This form of culture includes myths, legends, tales, epics, songs, dances, etc. Elite culture- a set of individual creations that are created by well-known representatives of the privileged part of society or on its order by professional creators. Here we're talking about about creators who have a high level of education and are well known to the enlightened public. This culture includes art, literature, classical music etc.

Mass (public) culture represents products of spiritual production in the field of art, created large editions for the general public. The main thing for her is to entertain the broadest masses of the population. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education. Its main feature is the simplicity of ideas and images: texts, movements, sounds, etc. Samples of this culture are aimed at the emotional sphere of a person. At the same time, mass culture often uses simplified examples of elitist and folk culture(“remixes”). Mass culture homogenizes spiritual development of people.

Subculture- this is the culture of any social group: confessional, professional, corporate, etc. As a rule, it does not deny universal human culture, but has specific characteristics. The signs of the subculture become special rules behavior, language, symbolism. Each society has its own set of subcultures: youth, professional, ethnic, religious, dissident, etc.

Dominant culture- values, traditions, views, etc., shared only by part of society. But this part has the opportunity to impose them on the entire society, either due to the fact that it constitutes the ethnic majority, or due to the fact that it has a coercive mechanism. A subculture that opposes the dominant culture is called a counterculture. The social basis of counterculture is people who are, to a certain extent, alienated from the rest of society. Studying the counterculture allows us to understand cultural dynamics, formation and dissemination of new values.

The tendency to evaluate the culture of one's own nation as good and correct, and another culture as strange and even immoral, has been called "ethnocentrism" Many societies are ethnocentric. From a psychological point of view, this phenomenon acts as a factor in the unity and stability of a given society. However, ethnocentrism can be a source of intercultural conflicts. The extreme forms of manifestation of ethnocentrism are nationalism. The opposite is cultural relativism.

Elite culture

Elite, or high culture is created by a privileged part, or by its order, by professional creators. It includes fine art, classical music and literature. High culture, for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schnittke, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. Formula elite culture — “art for art's sake”.

Elite culture intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and is opposed to both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.

Elite culture includes avant-garde movements in music, painting, cinema, and complex literature philosophical nature. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of the “ivory tower”, who have fenced themselves off with their art from the real world. Everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.

Modern tendencies are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of “high culture”, mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time it itself gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.

Folk culture

Folk culture is recognized as a special form of culture. Unlike elitist folk culture, culture is created by anonymous creators who do not have professional training. Authors folk creations unknown. Folk culture is called amateur (not by level, but by origin) or collective. It includes myths, legends, tales, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances. In terms of execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (statement of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), or mass (carnival processions). Folklore is another name folk art, which is created by various segments of the population. Folklore is localized, that is, associated with the traditions of a given area, and is democratic, since everyone participates in its creation. Modern manifestations of folk culture include jokes and urban legends.

Mass culture

Mass or public art does not express the refined tastes of the aristocracy or the spiritual quest of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when facilities mass media (radio, print, television, recordings, tape recorders, video) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social classes. Mass culture can be international and national. Popular and variety music - shining example mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education.

Popular culture is usually has less artistic value than elite or popular culture. But it has the widest audience. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to and reflects any new event. Therefore, examples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose relevance, become obsolete, and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and popular culture. Pop culture is a slang name for mass culture, and kitsch is its variety.

Subculture

The set of values, beliefs, traditions and customs that guide the majority of members of society is called dominant culture. Since society breaks up into many groups (national, demographic, social, professional), each of them gradually develops own culture, i.e. a system of values and rules of behavior. Small cultures are called subcultures.

Subculture- part of the general culture, a system of values, traditions, customs inherent in a particular country. They talk about a youth subculture, a subculture of older people, a subculture of national minorities, a professional subculture, a criminal subculture. A subculture differs from the dominant culture in language, outlook on life, manners of behavior, hairstyle, dress, and customs. The differences may be very strong, but the subculture is not opposed to the dominant culture. Drug addicts, deaf and dumb people, homeless people, alcoholics, athletes, and lonely people have their own culture. Children of aristocrats or members of the middle class are very different in their behavior from children of the lower class. They are reading different books, go to different schools, focus on different ideals. Each generation and social group has its own cultural world.

Counterculture

Counterculture denotes a subculture that not only differs from the dominant culture, but is opposed and in conflict with dominant values. The terrorist subculture is opposed to human culture, and the hippie youth movement in the 1960s. rejected mainstream American values: hard work, material success, conformity, sexual restraint, political loyalty, rationalism.

Culture in Russia

State of spiritual life modern Russia can be characterized as a transition from defending the values associated with attempts to build a communist society to the search for new meaning social development. We have entered the next round of the historical dispute between Westerners and Slavophiles.

The Russian Federation is a multinational country. Its development is due to the characteristics national cultures. The uniqueness of the spiritual life of Russia lies in its diversity cultural traditions, religious beliefs, moral standards, aesthetic tastes, etc., which is associated with the specifics of the cultural heritage of different peoples.

Currently, in the spiritual life of our country there are contradictory trends. On the one hand, the mutual penetration of different cultures contributes to interethnic understanding and cooperation, on the other hand, the development of national cultures is accompanied by interethnic conflicts. The latter circumstance requires a balanced, tolerant attitude towards the culture of other communities.

Mass culture is a phenomenon characteristic of to a greater extent, for the XX-XXI centuries. However, some researchers believe that it originated in the era of Antiquity and, as examples, cite the Olympic Games, gladiator fights, and ancient Greek theater. Others believe that this phenomenon emerged only in the 19th century, and reached its true development in the middle of the 20th century, with the development of mass communications and the growing role of information. Until now, there is no consensus among researchers on this issue.

Another controversial issue in this topic is the question of the relationship between mass and folk culture. Supporters of the first position say that these two cultures are the same, at the same time adding that folk culture is a kind of lower mass culture. This means that mass culture is created by professionals, people who are educated in this field, and folk culture is created by self-taught people, people who come from the people. In this case, such a position may be justified.

A more acceptable position is one that notes that mass and folk culture are two absolutely different phenomena. In confirmation this fact it is necessary to compare the parameters of these cultures: who is the creator, what they are focused on, what underlies them. Let us first consider folk culture. Its creator is the people themselves, this culture more realistic, has deep historical roots and aims to convey the traditions and values of the people. In contrast, mass culture is created by a certain group of professionals, it is fashion-oriented, as a result, it is momentary and changes quickly, the main goal of mass culture is to obtain financial benefits.

In addition to these controversial issues, another point arises in the 21st century - what is mass culture at the present time. One of the most common definitions is a culture that is popular and prevalent among the general population in a given society. It includes such phenomena as sports, entertainment, everyday life, music, including pop music, literature, media, fine arts, etc. It is worth adding that this phenomenon focuses exclusively on the average consumer, for whom the main thing is the entertainment process. At the same time, they talk about elite culture - a subculture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and recipients, this culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, in a broad sense.

If at the beginning of the 20th century it was possible to clearly imagine an elite culture and an emerging mass culture, now it is quite difficult. Mass culture is aimed at a wide range of consumers, helping to satisfy their primary needs, while elite art is “art for art’s sake.” But in the 21st century it is already becoming problematic to draw a line between them. The development of mass communications has led to the fact that the broad masses of people can join the elite culture. You can safely visit the Louvre without leaving your home, you can watch a ballet or play, again, sitting at the computer, many classical works became publicly available. Thus, in terms of availability and distribution, the line between these phenomena is already blurred. But this concerns the high culture of past centuries. It has become publicly available, which has its pros and cons. We'll talk about them later. But is there an elite culture in the 21st century and what are its characteristics?

Interest in the study of mass culture has been developing for quite a long time and has now formed a large number of research, theories and concepts to this phenomenon. The authors of most of them define mass culture as a special social phenomenon, which has its own genesis, specificity and development trends. Let us consider the most significant of these approaches to the definition of mass culture.

The first approach is related to the consideration of mass society. Research in this area gives a central place to mass society emerging as a result of the processes of industrialization and urbanization. In this case, popular culture means special type culture, which can replace traditional forms of folk culture. The scientific reasoning of J. Bentham, N. Berdyaev, M. Weber, R. Williams, F. Leavis, F. Nietzsche, D. Riesman, D. Thompson, Z. Freud, E. Fromm, K. Jung, went in this direction. R. Hoggart. In the works of these philosophers and scientists, mass culture is defined as the ultimate expression of spiritual lack of freedom, a social mechanism of alienation and oppression of the human personality. Representatives of this scientific direction tended to interpret the phenomenon of mass culture as a negative phenomenon.

The development of one of the most critical concepts of mass society belongs to the famous Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. He defined society as an association of minorities and masses, in constant dynamic development. The minority, in his opinion, consisted of individuals who possess certain characteristic features, while the mass is just a set of individuals who do not have any special differences. The masses are average people. " Mass man" was created under the influence rapid growth population in cities and narrow professional specialization, which weakened the cultural potential and spiritually undermined modern civilization. Ortega y Gasset's opinion was that these phenomena led to instability and collapse of culture as a whole. The ideas of the Spanish thinker have many points in consonance with the theories of mass society by K. Mannheim, E. Fromm and H. Arendt.

In the theories of mass culture of the Frankfurt School, the concept of the cultural industry, which is the guarantor of the sustainability of capitalism, became fundamental. Representatives of this school came to general conclusion that under the influence of mass culture a conformism can be formed that keeps the consumer’s reactions in an infantile, static state, allowing him to manipulate his consciousness. Thus, the phenomenon of mass culture was also given a negative assessment within the framework of these studies. Among the most prominent representatives of the Frankfurt School it is necessary to name T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, W. Benjamin and G. Marcuse.

Another approach defines mass culture as a phenomenon manifested in modern society, which is characterized by some specific features of the expression of cultural values. The point of view is expressed that mass culture becomes an object of consumption for all people, regardless of where exactly they live or are located. Mass culture also becomes popular due to the fact that it is produced daily and en masse. In other words, the definition of popular culture comes down to the culture of everyday life, which is made available to the audience through the media.

D. Bell's approach can be considered one of the most interesting and productive, within the framework of which mass culture appears as an organization of everyday consciousness in the information society. A special sign system or a special language with the help of which mutual understanding is achieved between all members of the information society. She acts as a link between post-industrial society with its inherent high specialization and man integrated into it only as its component.

Popular culture is also part global culture consumption, which is reproduced industrially and in large volumes. It can also be seen as the culture of everyday life, provided to the majority of society through a variety of channels, including media and communication. Mass culture itself is quite closely connected with them. The content of mass culture can be considered the products of modern industrial production, as well as cinema, television, books, newspapers and magazines, sports, tourism, etc. The consumption of these products is massive, since the audience to which this culture is perceived is of a mass nature, i.e. This, as a rule, is the audience of large halls, stadiums, millions of viewers on television and movie screens.

The formation of mass culture is usually associated with the 1870-1890s, when initially in Great Britain, and after it, other European countries began to pass laws on the mandatory spread of universal literacy among the population. This circumstance also determines the initial connection between mass culture and the means of mass communication. To spread literacy among the masses, they first used technical capabilities printing industry, realized in the production of cheap popular newspapers and magazines, cheap books in the genres of fiction, romance and detective novels and comics.

The emergence of mass culture was a deeper process than simply the emergence of another type of culture along with the already existing ones. It led to a change in the very way culture functions as a whole. Gradually, old forms of sociality were dying out, patriarchal ties were being lost between people who lived in a rather closed world of small towns and villages, focusing on familiar orientations and traditional values. Thus, a wave of active migration from villages to cities, from the Old World to the New World was provoked, and big cities, which entailed a change in a significant part of the population. However, one of the phenomena that has occurred is worth highlighting in particular - the increase in time for rest, due to a reduction in the amount of working time, under the influence of the development of technology, which was able to free a person from many previously necessary labor operations, mainly in the household. As a result, the broadest sections of society also began to feel the need for leisure. This leisure time was to be filled by mass culture, which managed to put the practice of entertainment on a wide stream.

The merging of culture with the world of entertainment began to occur, which predetermined key features subject field of mass culture. Elements of mass culture had to be interesting in their content and have an effective form for quick perception by the viewer, combine a clear plot with intrigue, and demonstrate belonging to a specific genre. This specificity made it possible to predetermine the main features that characterize mass culture. Firstly, it is characterized by the seriality of its objects of consumption; secondly, the transmission of primitive standards of life and relationships between people; thirdly, entertainment, fun, sentimentality; fourthly, cult propaganda strong personality, which always accompanies life success.

In works of mass culture, the consumer is always primarily interested in the plot, in which he can discover similarities with his own life, the authenticity of imaginary heroes, which gives him the opportunity to experience various emotions along with the heroes, empathizing with their life's hardships and rejoicing with them. The viewer or reader identifies with those characters work of art, in which their aspirations for ideal and unfulfilled dreams are embodied. Thus, mass culture appears to the consumer as an illusory compensation for the fact that real life is often unfair to its heroes, where there are often situations of difficult financial situation, lack of success, recognition, etc. The consumer of mass culture is given the opportunity to temporarily abandon his problems by identifying himself with a prosperous hero, thus diversifying his emotionally meager existence.

Currently, most people, mainly young people, form their ideas about the style of behavior, lifestyle, career, relationships between people that need to be demonstrated in contemporary society through popular culture. Ideas about food, clothing, housing, household appliances, household items, and education are transmitted to people through the mechanisms of mass culture. In modern times, any product begins to be considered prestigious and valuable only when it begins to act as an item of mass demand. Thus, mass culture stimulates the culture of consumption, actively using advertising as a means of this stimulation.

Mass culture also acts as a kind of foundation for world culture, as a result of which national boundaries are erased and eliminated. Works of mass culture are based on certain universal psychological and psychophysiological characteristics and mechanisms of perception that operate regardless of the level of education and the degree of preparedness of the audience. Moreover, education is often even perceived by the creators of mass culture as a certain harmful factor, since it can interfere with direct emotional perception, which is what mass culture is aimed at in the first place.

Based on the provisions discussed above, it seems possible to formulate the main features characteristic of mass culture:

– focus on a homogeneous audience and mainly on emotions, irrationality, collective unconsciousness, escapism;

– quickly accessible and quickly forgotten;

– a base based on the average linguistic semiotic norm;

– entertaining.

For a long time, critics, when assessing mass culture, spoke only about its negative aspects, emphasizing the baseness and vulgarity of its products. It was believed that it could only be in demand by an undemanding and undeveloped public. She was condemned for her focus on consumption rather than creativity, and her tendency to form a certain spiritual standard, i.e. to some extent, the homogenization of a person, which is based on his upbringing of rather unpretentious demands in the field of art. Among the endowment of mass culture with such negative qualities, it was also attributed a predominantly entertaining character. It was emphasized that very few works address questions about the purpose and meaning of life, values. You can often encounter a situation where works of mass culture are performed at a fairly low level. professional level, do not have high aesthetic value and are capable of forming only a mass worldview, which is characterized by uncritical beliefs and views.

These arguments cannot be rejected as meaningless. However, it is necessary to say about the positive aspects that the development of mass culture brings. First, the emergence of popular culture contributed to the achievement of universal literacy, resulting in many more people gaining access to cultural values. Quite a lot of products are created and replicated by mass culture Low quality, but along with it there are indisputable masterpieces that encourage a person to study these and other works more deeply. Secondly, mass culture plays a significant role in the development of a modern recreational mechanism for relieving stress and tension. Thirdly, one should not delve into the categorical opposition of mass culture high culture previous eras. In those days, both middle and lower cultures also existed, but over time, only its masterpieces have reached us, which represent a single phenomenon of any era, the identification of which always occurs only with the passage of time. The same will happen with modern culture, which over time will weed out most of the works, leaving only real art.

Modern researchers usually distinguish three key levels of mass culture. Firstly, kitsch culture, i.e. mass culture as its most base manifestation. Initially, kitsch became widespread only in applied arts. However, over time, it has embraced all forms of art, including film and television. Kitsch is mainly characterized by a simplified presentation of issues. At its core, kitsch has those images, ideas and plots that are quite stereotypical and focused on the average person, whose life is boring and monotonous. Kich is not intended to pose questions to its consumer, to provoke spiritual quests and psychological discomfort. It contains only answers in the form of pre-prepared clichés.

The next level of mass culture can be considered mid-culture, i.e. a culture that is characterized by some features of traditional culture, along with some features of mass culture. Compared to kitsch, this form of mass culture is distinguished by the higher moral potential that it contains. We can say that it is she who sets the tone and forms standards that act as guidelines for mass culture as a whole.

Another level of mass culture is art culture, in which there is a certain artistic content and its aesthetic expression. Art culture belongs to the highest level of mass culture, which is oriented and designed for the most educated and demanding segment of its audience in terms of the quality of consumed products. Its main task is to bring mass culture as close as possible to the norms and standards that are characteristic of traditional culture.

Recently, mass culture has been increasingly influenced by mid-culture, i.e. middle-level culture, within which the adaptation of works of classical literature takes place, a fashion for examples of truly artistic creativity, popular science, and classical music is formed. The processes taking place in mid-culture contribute to the growth of the general level of mass culture of our time. This conclusion seems possible to draw when comparing works whose creation dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. and to its last decades. There is also a tendency towards the ethicization of this culture, thanks to which a certain rise in its moral level is achieved.

Among the key areas of modern mass culture are the following:

– the childhood industry, which finds expression in the production of goods and toys for children, the organization of children's clubs and camps, and the emergence of forms of collective education of children;

– a mass comprehensive school that introduces children to the basics scientific knowledge, forms their picture of the world, the basis of which is the value guidelines common in a given society, as well as the sameness of stereotypes;

– mass media, through which current information is conveyed to the general population and evaluated. Thus, public opinion is formed and the ground is created for subsequent manipulation of people’s consciousness;

– a system of national or state ideology and propaganda, the key task of which is the formation of political reliability among the majority of the population;

– mass political movements and parties that representatives of the political and state elite use to achieve their goals as a result of whipping up political, nationalist or religious psychosis;

– world social mythology or quasi-religious movements and sects, pseudoscientific teachings, the creation of idols, the formation of gossip and rumors, with the help of which it is possible to give simple explanations of all the problems of our time. Myths about the world conspiracy of a secret organization, aliens and other information of this order is a product of world social mythology;

– the entertainment leisure industry, which includes mass artistic culture with all types of literature and art, entertaining performances, spectacular professional sports, clubs, discos and other instruments that can contribute to a person’s mental relaxation;

– health leisure industry, including resorts, sports tourism, mass physical education, cosmetic companies and services;

– the industry of intellectual and aesthetic leisure, implying “cultural” tourism, amateur performances, collecting, clubs and societies of interests, scientific and educational institutions, continuing what has been preserved since the 18th century. educational tendency;

– gaming complexes that can develop reaction speed and help a person develop skills that help them adapt to the modern pace and rhythm of life;

– dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias, electronic information banks, libraries focused on meeting the interests of the mass consumer and popularizing modern knowledge.

Thus, mass culture is the new most developed form of cultural competence modern man. It consists of new mechanisms of enculturation and socialization, new system control and manipulation public consciousness, interests and needs of a person. Mass culture can be seen as a way of existence modern culture. Which, on the one hand, is a culture that meets modern type man, and on the other hand, becomes an instrument of his creation.

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Popular culture in the 18th and 19th centuries

The prerequisites for the formation of mass culture are inherent in the very existence of the structure of society. José Ortega y Gasset formulated a well-known approach to structuring based on creative potential. Then the idea of a “creative elite” arises, which, naturally, constitutes a smaller part of society, and of the “mass” - quantitatively the main part of the population. Accordingly, it becomes possible to talk about both the culture of the “mass” - “mass culture”. During this period, a division of culture occurs, determined by the formation of new significant social strata that gain access to full education, but do not belong to the elite. Having the opportunity for a conscious aesthetic perception of cultural phenomena, newly emerging social groups, constantly communicating with the masses, make “elite” phenomena significant on a social scale and at the same time show interest in “mass” culture, in some cases their mixing occurs (see, for example, Charles Dickens ).

Mass culture in the 20th century

In the 20th century mass society and the associated mass culture have become the subject of research by prominent scientists in various scientific fields: philosophers Jose Ortega y Gasset (“Revolt of the Masses”), Karl Jaspers (“The Spiritual Situation of the Time”), Oswald Spengler (“The Decline of Europe”); sociologists Jean Baudrillard (“Phantoms of Modernity”), P. A. Sorokin (“Man. Civilization. Society.”) and others. Analyzing mass culture, each of them notes a tendency towards its commercialization.

Karl Marx, analyzing problems market economy, celebrated commercialization literary work:

“Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost and received £5 for it, was an unproductive worker. On the contrary, a writer who works for his bookseller in a factory manner is a productive worker. Milton created Paradise Lost with the same necessity with which a silkworm produces silk. This was a real manifestation of his nature. He then sold his work for £5. And the Leipzig literary proletarian, who manufactures books at the behest of his publisher... is a productive worker, since his production is from the very beginning subordinated to capital, and is carried out only to increase the value of this capital.

Speaking about art in general, an approximately similar trend was noted by P. A. Sorokin in the middle of the 20th century: “As a commercial product for entertainment, art is increasingly controlled by merchants, commercial interests and fashion trends... This situation creates the highest connoisseurs of beauty from commercial businessmen, forces artists to submit to their demands, which are also imposed through advertising and other media.” IN beginning of XXI century, modern researchers state the same cultural phenomena: “Modern trends are cumulative in nature and have already led to the creation of a critical mass of changes that have affected the very foundations of content and activity cultural institutions. The most significant of them, in our opinion, include: the commercialization of culture, democratization, the blurring of boundaries - both in the field of knowledge and in the field of technology - as well as a predominant attention to the process rather than to the content."

The attitude towards mass culture in modern philosophical and cultural thought is not unambiguous. If Karl Jaspers called mass art “the decline of the essence of art,” and Jean Baudrillard said that all spheres of modern art “enter the transaesthetic sphere of simulation,” then these concepts were revised in the 1960-1970s. within the framework of postmodernism, which for many researchers has destroyed the opposition of mass and elite cultures of qualitative evaluative meaning. Speaking about art (meaning elite art) of the early 20th century, Ortega y Gasset talks about its dehumanization. In such conditions, the increasing role of “super-humanized” mass art is a natural process.

Genres of popular culture

A necessary property of a mass culture product must be entertaining in order for it to be a commercial success, so that it is bought and the money spent on it makes a profit. Entertaining is determined by the strict structural conditions of the text. The plot and stylistic texture of mass culture products may be primitive from the point of view of elitist fundamental culture, but it should not be poorly made, but, on the contrary, in its primitiveness it should be perfect - only in this case will it be guaranteed readership and, therefore, commercial success . Stream of consciousness, defamiliarization, intertext are not suitable for mass culture. For mass literature you need a clear plot with intrigue and twists and turns and, most importantly, a clear division into genres. We see this clearly in the example of mass cinema. The genres are clearly demarcated and there are not many of them. The main ones are detective, thriller, comedy, melodrama, horror film, or, as it has been called lately, “chiller” (from the English chill - to tremble with fear), science fiction, pornography. Each genre is a self-contained world with its own linguistic laws, which should never be crossed, especially in cinema, where production involves the greatest amount of financial investment. Using the terms of semiotics, we can say that genres of mass culture must have a rigid syntax - an internal structure, but at the same time they may be semantically poor, they may lack deep meaning. In the 20th century, mass culture replaced folklore, which is also syntactically constructed extremely rigidly. This was most clearly demonstrated in the 1920s by V. Ya. Propp, who analyzed a fairy tale and showed that it always contains the same syntactic structural scheme, which can be formalized and represented in logical symbols. Texts of mass literature and cinema are constructed in the same way. Why is this necessary? This is necessary so that the genre can be recognized immediately; and the expectation must not be violated. The viewer should not be disappointed. Comedy should not spoil a detective story, and the plot of a thriller should be exciting and dangerous. This is why stories within popular genres are so often repeated. Repeatability is a property of myth - this is the deep relationship between mass and elite culture, which in the 20th century, willy-nilly, focuses on the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Actors are identified with characters in the minds of the viewer. A hero who dies in one film seems to be resurrected in another, just as archaic mythological gods died and were resurrected. After all, movie stars are the gods of modern mass consciousness.

Cult texts of mass culture

A variety of mass culture texts are cult texts. Their main feature is that they penetrate so deeply into the mass consciousness that they produce intertexts, but not in themselves, but in the surrounding reality. That is, cult texts of mass culture form a special intertextual reality around themselves.

An elite culture, which in its internal structure is built in a complex and sophisticated way, cannot influence extra-textual reality in such a way. It's hard to imagine jokes about Hans Castorp from The Magic Mountain or Joseph Knecht from The Glass Bead Game. True, it happens that some modernist or avant-garde technique is mastered by fundamental culture to such an extent that it becomes a cliche, then it can be used by texts of mass culture. As an example, we can cite the famous Soviet cinema posters, where the huge face of the main character of the film was depicted in the foreground, and in the background little people were killing someone or simply flickering (depending on the genre). This change, distortion of proportions is a stamp of surrealism. But the mass consciousness perceives it as realistic, although everyone knows that there is no head without a body, and that such space is, in essence, absurd. Postmodernism - that careless and frivolous child of the end of the 20th century - finally let in mass culture and mixed it with elite culture. At first it was a compromise called kitsch. But then classic texts of postmodern culture, such as Umberto Eco’s novel “The Name of the Rose” or Quentin Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction,” began to actively use the strategy internal structure mass art.