A Theory of Mass Culture
- 1 June 1953
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Diogenes
- Vol. 1 (3) , 1-17
- https://doi.org/10.1177/039219215300100301
Abstract
For about a century, Western culture has really been two cultures: the traditional kind—let us call it ‘High Culture’—that is chronicled in the textbooks, and a ‘Mass Culture’ manufactured wholesale for the market. In the old art forms, the artisans of Mass Culture have long been at work: in the novel, the line stretches from Eugène Süe to Lloyd C. Douglas; in music, from Offenbach to tin-pan alley; in art, from the chromo to Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell; in architecture, from Victorian Gothic to suburban Tudor. Mass Culture has also developed new media of its own, into which the serious artist rarely ventures: radio, the movies, comic books, detective stories, science-fiction, television.Keywords
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: