home-Dresses-Mass culture as a social phenomenon. National and mass culture Reasons for the emergence of mass culture

Mass culture as a social phenomenon. National and mass culture Reasons for the emergence of mass culture

Adapted to the tastes of the broad masses of people, it is technically replicated in the form of many copies and distributed using modern communication technologies.

The emergence and development of mass culture is associated with the rapid development of mass media, capable of exerting a powerful influence on the audience. IN media There are usually three components:

  • mass media(newspapers, magazines, radio, television, Internet blogs, etc.) - replicate information, have a regular impact on the audience and are aimed at certain groups of people;
  • means of mass influence(advertising, fashion, cinema, popular literature) - do not always regularly influence the audience, are aimed at the average consumer;
  • technical means of communication(Internet, telephone) - determine the possibility of direct communication between a person and a person and can be used to transmit personal information.

Let us note that not only the media have an impact on society, but society also seriously influences the nature of the information transmitted in the media. Unfortunately, the demands of the public often turn out to be low culturally, which reduces the level of television programs, newspaper articles, variety shows, etc.

In recent decades, in the context of the development of means of communication, they talk about a special computer culture. If previously the main source of information was the book page, now it is the computer screen. A modern computer allows you to instantly receive information over the network, supplement the text with graphic images, videos, and sound, which ensures a holistic and multi-level perception of information. In this case, text on the Internet (for example, a web page) can be represented as hypertext. those. contain a system of references to other texts, fragments, non-textual information. The flexibility and versatility of computer information display tools greatly enhance the degree of its impact on humans.

At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century. mass culture began to play an important role in ideology and economics. However, this role is ambiguous. On the one hand, mass culture made it possible to reach wide sections of the population and introduce them to cultural achievements, presenting them in simple, democratic and understandable images and concepts, but on the other hand, it created powerful mechanisms for manipulating public opinion and forming an average taste.

The main components of mass culture include:

  • information industry- the press, television news, talk shows, etc., explaining current events in understandable language. Mass culture was initially formed in the sphere of the information industry - the “yellow press” of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Time has shown the high efficiency of mass communication in the process of manipulating public opinion;
  • leisure industry- films, entertaining literature, pop humor with the most simplified content, pop music, etc.;
  • formation system mass consumption, which centers on advertising and fashion. Consumption here is presented as a non-stop process and the most important goal of human existence;
  • replicated mythology- from the myth of the “American Dream”, where beggars turn into millionaires, to the myths about “national exceptionalism” and the special virtues of one or another people compared to others.

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    Mass culture is a natural attribute of mass society that meets its requirements and ideological guidelines. The dependence of the formation of social consciousness of the individual, the spiritual and moral development of the people on the content of the development of mass communication.

    Mass culture is a concept that is used to characterize modern cultural production and consumption. This is cultural production, organized according to the type of mass, serial conveyor industry and supplying the same standardized, serial, mass product for standardized mass consumption. Mass culture is a specific product of a modern industrialized urban society.

    Mass culture is the culture of the masses, culture intended for consumption by the people; this is the consciousness not of the people, but of the commercial cultural industry; it is hostile to truly popular culture. She knows no traditions, has no nationality, her tastes and ideals change with dizzying speed in accordance with the needs of fashion. Mass culture appeals to a wide audience, appeals to simplified tastes, and claims to be folk art.

    In modern sociology, the concept of “mass culture” is increasingly losing its critical focus. The functional significance of mass culture, which ensures the socialization of huge masses of people in the complex, changing environment of a modern industrial urbanized society, is emphasized. While affirming simplified, stereotypical ideas, mass culture nevertheless performs the function of constant life support for a wide variety of social groups. It also ensures mass inclusion in the consumption system and thereby the functioning of mass production. Mass culture is characterized by universality; it covers a broad middle part of society, affecting both the elite and marginal layers in a specific way.

    Mass culture affirms the identity of material and spiritual values, equally acting as products of mass consumption. It is characterized by the emergence and accelerated development of a special professional apparatus, the task of which is to use the content of consumed goods, the technology of their production and distribution in order to subordinate mass consciousness to the interests of monopolies and the state apparatus.

    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 discover it already in ancient times. Much more justified are attempts to connect the emergence of “mass culture” with the scientific and technological revolution, which gave rise to new ways of producing, disseminating and consuming culture. Golenkova Z.T., Akulich M.M., Kuznetsov I.M. General sociology: Textbook. - M.: Gardariki, 2012. - 474 p.

    There are a number of points of view regarding the origins of mass culture in cultural studies:

    • 1. The prerequisites for mass culture have been formed since the birth of humanity.
    • 2. The origins of mass culture are associated with the appearance in European literature of the 17th-18th centuries of the adventure, detective, and adventurous novel, which significantly expanded the readership due to huge circulations.
    • 3. The law on compulsory universal literacy, adopted in 1870 in Great Britain, had a great influence on the development of mass culture, which allowed many to master the main form of artistic creativity of the 19th century - the novel.

    Nowadays, the mass has changed significantly. The masses have become educated and informed. In addition, the subjects of mass culture today are not just the masses, but also individuals united by various connections. Since people act simultaneously as individuals, and as members of local groups, and as members of mass social communities, the subject of “mass culture” can be considered as dual, that is, both individual and mass at the same time. In turn, the concept of “mass culture” characterizes the peculiarities of the production of cultural values ​​in a modern industrial society, designed for mass consumption of this culture. At the same time, mass production of culture is understood by analogy with the conveyor belt industry.

    What are the economic prerequisites for the formation and social functions of mass culture? The desire to see a product in the sphere of spiritual activity, combined with the powerful development of mass communication, led to the creation of a new phenomenon - mass culture. A predetermined commercial installation, conveyor production - all this largely means the transfer to the sphere of artistic culture of the same financial-industrial approach that prevails in other branches of industrial production. In addition, many creative organizations are closely connected with banking and industrial capital, which initially predetermines them to produce commercial, box office, and entertainment works. In turn, the consumption of these products is mass consumption, because the audience that perceives this culture is the mass audience of large halls, stadiums, millions of viewers of television and movie screens. Socially, mass culture forms a new social stratum, called the “middle class,” which has become the core of life in industrial society. He also made mass culture so popular. Mass culture mythologizes human consciousness, mystifies real processes occurring in nature and in human society. There is a rejection of the rational principle in consciousness. The purpose of mass culture is not so much to fill leisure time and relieve tension and stress in a person of industrial and post-industrial society, but to stimulate consumer consciousness in the recipient (that is, the viewer, listener, reader), which in turn forms a special type - passive, uncritical perception of this culture in humans. All this creates a personality that is quite easy to manipulate. In other words, the human psyche is manipulated and the emotions and instincts of the subconscious sphere of human feelings are exploited, and above all feelings of loneliness, guilt, hostility, fear, and self-preservation.

    National culture , as a system of unified national standards of social adequacy and unified ones emerges only in modern times during the processes of industrialization and urbanization, the formation of capitalism in its classical, postclassical and even alternative (socialist) forms.

    The formation of a national culture is built as a unifying superstructure over society, setting certain universal standards for some sociocultural features of the nation. Of course, even before the formation of nations, the same kind of unifying different classes took place features of ethnic culture: first of all language, religion, folklore, some household rituals, elements of clothing, household items, etc. National culture sets fundamentally uniform benchmarks and standards implemented by publicly accessible specialized cultural institutions: universal education, the press, political organizations, mass forms of artistic culture and literature, etc.

    Concepts “ethnic” And “national” culture are often used interchangeably. However, in cultural studies they have different contents.

    Ethnic (folk) culture- is a culture of people connected by a common origin (blood relationship) and jointly carried out economic activities. It changes from one area to another. Local limitation, strict localization, isolation in a relatively narrow social space is one of the main features of this culture. Ethnic culture mainly covers the sphere of everyday life, customs, clothing, folk crafts, and folklore. Conservatism, continuity, and focus on preserving “roots” are characteristic features of ethnic culture. Some elements of it become symbols of the identity of the people and patriotic attachment to their historical past - “cabbage soup and porridge”, a samovar and a sundress for the Russians, a kimono for the Japanese, a plaid skirt for the Scots, a towel for the Ukrainians.

    IN ethnic culture the power of tradition, habit, and customs, passed on from generation to generation at the family or neighborhood level, dominates. The defining mechanism of cultural communication here is direct communication between generations of people living nearby. Elements of folk culture - rituals, customs, myths, beliefs, legends, folklore - are preserved and transmitted within the boundaries of a given culture through the natural abilities of each person - his memory, oral speech and living language, natural musical ear, organic plasticity. This does not require any special training or special technical means of storage and recording.

    The structure of national culture is more complex than ethnic. National culture includes, along with traditional everyday, professional and everyday culture, also specialized areas of culture. And since the nation embraces society, and society has stratification and social structure, the concept of national culture embraces the subcultures of all large groups, which an ethnic group may not have. Moreover, ethnic cultures are part of the national one. Take such young nations as the USA or Brazil, nicknamed ethnic cauldrons. American national culture is extremely heterogeneous, it includes Irish, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Russian, Jewish and other ethnic cultures. Most modern national cultures are multiethnic.

    National culture cannot be reduced to a mechanical sum ethnic cultures. She has something beyond that. It has its own national cultural features, which arose when representatives of all ethnic groups realized that they belonged to a new nation. For example, both blacks and whites equally enthusiastically sing the US anthem and honor the American flag, respect its laws and national holidays, in particular Thanksgiving Day (US Independence Day). None of this exists in any ethnic culture or among any people who came to the United States. They appeared in new territory. Awareness by large social groups of their commitment to the territory of their settlement, the national literary language, national traditions and symbols constitutes the content of national culture.

    Unlike ethnicnational culture unites people living over large areas and not necessarily related by blood. Experts believe that a new type of social communication associated with the invention of writing is a prerequisite for the emergence of a national culture. It is thanks to writing that the ideas necessary for national unification gain popularity among the literate part of the population.

    However, the main difficulty in the dissemination of national culture is that modern knowledge, norms, cultural patterns and meanings are developed almost exclusively in the depths of highly specialized areas of social practice. They are more or less successfully understood and assimilated by relevant specialists; For the bulk of the population, the languages ​​of modern specialized culture (political, scientific, artistic, engineering, etc.) are almost incomprehensible. Society requires a system of means for semantic adaptation, “translation” of transmitted information from the language of highly specialized areas of culture to the level of everyday understanding of unprepared people, for “interpretation” of this information to its mass consumer, a certain “infantilization” of its figurative incarnations, as well as “control” of the consciousness of the masses. consumer in the interests of the manufacturer of this information, offered goods, services, etc.



    This kind of adaptation has always been required for children when, in the processes of upbringing and general education, “adult” meanings were translated into the language of fairy tales, parables, entertaining stories, simplified examples, etc., more accessible to children’s consciousness. Now such interpretive practice has become necessary for a person throughout his life. A modern person, even being very educated, remains a narrow specialist in only one area, and the level of his specialization increases from century to century. In other areas, he requires a permanent “staff” of commentators, interpreters, teachers, journalists, advertising agents and other kinds of “guides” who lead him through the boundless sea of ​​information about goods, services, political events, artistic innovations, social conflicts, etc. It cannot be said that modern man has become more stupid or childish than his ancestors. It’s just that his psyche, apparently, cannot process such a quantity of information, conduct such a multifactorial analysis of such a number of simultaneously arising problems, use his social experience with due efficiency, etc. Let's not forget that the speed of information processing in computers is many times higher than the corresponding capabilities of the human brain.

    This situation requires the emergence of new methods of intelligent search, scanning, selection and systematization of information, “pressing” it into larger blocks, the development of new technologies for forecasting and decision-making, as well as the mental preparedness of people to work with such voluminous information flows. After the current “information revolution”, i.e. increasing the efficiency of information transmission and processing, as well as management decision-making, humanity expects a “forecasting revolution” - a leapfrogging increase in the efficiency of forecasting, probabilistic calculation, factor analysis, etc.

    In the meantime, people need some kind of remedy that relieves excess mental stress from the information flows that fall on them, reduces complex intellectual problems to primitive dual oppositions, and gives the individual the opportunity to “take a break” from social responsibility and personal choice. dissolve it in the crowd of soap opera viewers or mechanical consumers of advertised goods, ideas, slogans, etc. The implementer of this kind of needs was Mass culture. It cannot be said that mass culture generally frees a person from personal responsibility; rather, it is precisely about removing the problem of independent choice. The structure of existence (at least that part of it that directly concerns the individual) is given to a person as a set of more or less standard situations, where everything has already been chosen by those same “guides” in life: journalists, advertising agents, public politicians, etc. In mass culture, everything is already known in advance: the “correct” political system, the only correct doctrine, leaders, place in the ranks, sports and pop stars, the fashion for the image of a “class fighter” or “sexual symbol,” movies where “ours” are always right and always win, etc.

    This begs the question: weren’t there problems in previous times with translating the meanings of a specialized culture to the level of everyday understanding? Why did mass culture appear only in the last one and a half to two centuries, and what cultural phenomena performed this function earlier? Apparently, the fact is that before the scientific and technological revolution of recent centuries there really was no such gap between specialized and everyday knowledge. The only obvious exception to this rule was religion. We know well how great was the intellectual gap between “professional” theology and the mass religiosity of the population. Here, a “translation” from one language to another was really necessary (and often in the literal sense: from Latin, Church Slavonic, Arabic, Hebrew, etc. into the national languages ​​of believers). This task, both linguistically and in terms of content, was solved by preaching (both from the pulpit and missionary). It was the sermon, in contrast to the divine service, that was delivered in a language absolutely understandable to the congregation and was, to a greater or lesser extent, a reduction of religious dogma to publicly accessible images, concepts, parables, etc. Obviously, we can consider church sermons to be the historical predecessor of the phenomena of mass culture.

    at the same time, it is necessary to take into account that in KHUL-XIX centuries. none of the designated social subcultures or their mechanical sum (on the scale of one ethnic group or state) can be called the national culture of the state. At that time, there were no unified national standards of social adequacy and mechanisms for individual socialization unified for the entire culture. All this arises only in modern times in connection with the processes of industrialization and urbanization, the formation of capitalism in its classical, post-classical and even alternative (socialist) forms, the transformation of class societies into national ones and the erosion of class barriers separating people, the spread of universal literacy of the population, the degradation of many forms of traditional everyday culture of the pre-industrial type, the development of technical means of reproducing and broadcasting information, the liberalization of the way of life of society, the growing dependence of political elites on the state of public opinion, and the production of mass consumption products on the stability of consumer demand regulated by fashion, advertising, etc.

    Under these conditions, the tasks of standardizing sociocultural attitudes, interests and needs of the bulk of the population, intensifying the processes of manipulating the human personality, its social aspirations, political behavior, ideological orientations, consumer demand for goods, services, ideas, one’s own image, etc., have become equally relevant. P. In previous eras, the monopoly on such control of consciousness on a more or less mass scale belonged to the church and political authorities. In modern times, private producers of information, consumer goods and services also entered into competition for people’s consciousness. All this has led to the need to change the mechanisms of general socialization and inculturation of a person, which prepare the individual for the free realization of not only his productive labor, but also his sociocultural interests.

    If in traditional communities the problems of general socialization of the individual were solved primarily by means of personal transmission of knowledge, norms and patterns of consciousness and behavior (activity) from parents to children, from a teacher (master) to a student, from a priest to a neighbor, etc. (and in the content of the transmitted social experience, a special place belonged to the personal life experience of the educator and his personal sociocultural orientation and preferences), then at the stage of formation of national cultures, such mechanisms of social and cultural reproduction of the individual begin to lose their effectiveness. There is a need for greater universalization of the transmitted experience, value orientations, patterns of consciousness and behavior; the formation of national norms and standards of social and cultural adequacy of a person, the initiation of his interest and demand for standardized forms of social benefits; increasing the efficiency of the mechanisms of social regulation due to a unifying effect on the motivation of human behavior, social claims, images of prestige, etc. This, in turn, necessitated the creation of a channel for transmitting knowledge, concepts, sociocultural norms and other socially significant information to the broad masses of the population, a channel , covers the entire nation, and not just its individual educated strata. The first steps in this direction were the introduction of universal and compulsory primary and later secondary education, and then the development of the mass media, democratic political procedures covering ever larger masses of people, and In.1 The formation of a national culture does not negate its distribution to the social subcultures described above. National culture complements the system of social subcultures, turning into a unifying superstructure over them, which reduces the severity of social and value tension between different groups of people, and determines the universal standards of some sociocultural characteristics of the nation. Of course, even before the creation of nations, there were the same unifying features of ethnic culture for various states, primarily language, religion, folklore, some household rituals, elements of clothing, household items, etc. At the same time, ethnographic cultural features are inferior to national culture primarily in terms of universality (due to overwhelming non-institutionalization). The forms of ethnic culture are very flexible and variable in the practice of different population groups. Often even the language and religion of the aristocracy and the plebs of that same ethnic group are far from identical. National culture sets fundamentally identical benchmarks and standards, which are introduced by publicly accessible specialized cultural institutions: general education, the press, political organizations, mass forms of artistic culture, etc. For example, certain forms of fiction exist among all peoples who have a written language, but to historical transformation ethnic group into a nation, he does not face the problem of forming a national literary language from the language of one that exists in different regions in the form of local dialects. One of the essential characteristics of national culture is that, unlike ethnic culture, which is predominantly memorial, it reproduces the historical tradition of the collective forms of life of the people, national culture is primarily prognostic. It produces goals rather than results of development, knowledge, norms, composition and content of modernization orientation, filled with the pathos of intensification of all aspects of social life.

    However, the main difficulty in the dissemination of national culture is that modern knowledge, norms, cultural patterns and content are produced almost exclusively in the bowels of highly specialized branches of social practice. They are more or less successfully understood and assimilated by relevant specialists; For the bulk of the population, the language of modern specialized culture (political, scientific, artistic, engineering, etc.) is almost inaccessible to understanding. Society needs a system of means for adapting the content, “translating” the transmitted information from the language of highly specialized areas of culture to the level of everyday understanding of unprepared people, means for “interpreting” this information to the mass consumer, a certain “infantilization” of its figurative incarnations, as well as “managing” the consciousness of the mass consumer in the interests of the manufacturer of this information, offered goods, services, etc.

    Such adaptation has always been required for children when, in the processes of upbringing and general education, “adult” content was translated into the language of fairy tales, parables, entertaining stories, simplified examples, etc., more accessible to children’s consciousness. Now such interpretive practice has become necessary for a person throughout his life. A modern person, even a very educated one, remains a narrow specialist, and the level of her specialization (at least in the elite and bourgeois subcultures) is increasing from century to century. In other areas, she needs a permanent “staff” of commentators, interpreters, teachers, journalists, advertising agents and other “guides”, whose task is to guide her through the boundless sea of ​​information about goods, services, political events, artistic innovations, social conflicts, economic problems etc. It cannot be argued that modern man has become less intelligent or more infantile than her ancestors. It’s just that his psyche obviously cannot process such an amount of information, conduct such a multifactorial analysis of so many simultaneously arising problems, use his social experience with the necessary efficiency, etc. Let’s not forget that the speed of information processing in computers is many times greater than the capabilities of the human brain .

    This situation requires the introduction of new methods of intelligent search, scanning, selection and systematization of information, “pressing” IT into large blocks, the development of new technologies for forecasting and decision-making, as well as the mental preparation of people to work with such voluminous information flows. After the current “information revolution”, that is, an increase in the efficiency of transmitting and processing information, as well as making management decisions with the help of computers, humanity is likely to expect a “prediction revolution” - a sudden increase in the efficiency of forecasting, calculating probable, factor analysis, etc. , however, we will not predict with the help of what technical means (or methods of artificial stimulation of brain activity) this can happen.

    In the meantime, people need a way that would neutralize excess mental stress from information flows, turn complex intellectual problems into primitive dual oppositions ("good - bad", "ours - strangers", etc.), and also provide an opportunity to "take a break" from social responsibility, personal choice, dissolved him in the crowd of soap opera viewers or mechanical consumers of advertised goods, ideas, slogans, etc.

    Mass culture became the implementer of such needs. It cannot be said that it completely frees a person from personal responsibility; rather, it is precisely about removing the problem of independent choice. The structure of existence (at least that part of it that directly concerns the individual) is given to a person as a set of more or less standard situations, where everything is already planned by those same “guides” - journalists, advertising agents, public politicians, show business stars, etc. In popular culture, everything is already known in advance: the “correct” political system, the only true doctrine, leaders, sports and pop stars, the fashion for the image of a “class fighter” or “sexual symbol,” movies where “ours” are always right and certainly win , etc.



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