The Culture of mass fits in the company in which we live; it is often described as being a “Consumer society” where a great part of the relationship between the men are based or governed by economic processes or the Consommation and the wills of the Entreprise S become social phenomena. These processes institutionalize our lifestyles and are today under the influence of “the Mondialisation”.

Overall picture

The Culture of mass, inherent in this company, is thus a Social movement worms of artistic knowledge, Culturelle S, towards a system of education, a social lifestyle and of thought, a style of behavior, and which results in an act of Consommation and codes of social recognition which pushes with a standardization of the perception of the Réalité on the scale inter Community. One of the main features of this phenomenon is to rationalize the human reports/ratios and exchanges around the economic sphere. For example, like describes it Alain Corbin, “the spare time is caught up with by the commercial time, which integrates it in a economy before very concerned of Rationalité and Productivité”.

In this direction, the Culture of mass seems to work for the Démocratie while inserting individuals who appear more opened out (pleasure and dimension jubilatoire of consumption Culturelle) and better informed in public spaces where the bond Collectif is negotiated permanently.

The influence of the Media, the illusion of the choice of information which one reaches and the identification with a “phenomenon” of group can thus theoretically make it possible the Individu S to gather around common democratic values.

The " term; Consumer society " is the simplification of the " term; industrial society of consumption dirigée" , defined by Henri Lefebvre as being the state of the Capitalism according to the Second world war. However, the premises of this era of consumption of mass appeared quite front, at the time of the massive Industrialization of our Western companies.

History

Newspapers with great diffusion

In France, the Culture of mass appeared towards the Années 1860, at the same time as the one period appearance called age of paper .

This age of paper corresponds to the rise of the first newspapers with great diffusion, of their development and the principle of competition which they then entered, taking part in the rise of the companies of Distribution.

If these Journaux could develop, it is mainly for three reasons:

• the widening of the public taught reading and writing, with the projections as regards access to the school which knew the 19th century. (laws Ferry…). The Journaux gained new readers there and the editor S fully entered the school distribution of Manuel S to new large scales to satisfy the Besoin S resulting from the increase for many pupils in the school S and from the duration of their courses.
• release of the administrative yoke with the easing of the Freedom of the press which was gradually set up after the revolution of 1789.
• Technical progress S in the processes of Impression and diffusion: the arrival of the Train or the Télégraphe thus made it possible the Information more quickly to circulate and to quickly distribute identical newspapers in all the France.

This phenomenon took part in a full process of Acculturation and of homogenization Culturelle, since the French could reach same the Information S. Moreover, this period of the 19th century or the Ville S developed considerably highlighted the need for making them alive. To occupy the streets, the Festival S, the Fair S, the life in the grand boulevards where attractions became a commercial spearhead for the attractivity of the Ville S. This jump in front of the industry of Spectacle then makes it possible to gather, across the social distinctions, more many people.

There remain however distinctions Géographique S, the example of Paris shows us in the east the Bois of Vincennes and the Guinguette S of the edge of Marne for the workmen, employees… and the west with the Bois de Boulogne for the class of high Bourgeoisie. Then the center of the businesses (the Stock Exchange), of the Political , districts of trade with the development of the department stores. And today the great manifestations of the cities inevitably do not attract the public of the Banlieues (not adapted transport for example).

Diffusion by the Image

We can also bind the development of the Culture of mass to the increasingly intensive use of the Image in the Médias and to different the Technological advance S which brought to facilitate the diffusion of the Image (Photographie, Télévision, Magazine S, Internet…). According to Dominique Kalifa, “the Culture of mass is a Culture of the image”. The press while being illustrated and the possibility for the editor S of touching the public of the Enfant S with deliver S “very picturesque” returned the Population S applicants of images.

Today the Image is largely recovered by the advertizing executives and the services Marketing of the companies which were accustomed to Communiquer this manner.

In 1860, “the photographic review” speaks thus about the expansion of the format Calling card which then makes it possible to reduce the costs of the photographic Portrait. “It is the triumph of the Démocratie and the social equality”. Lastly, each one was able to be able to enjoy a process innovating Technique.

The Photo S and the facility of their reproduction, by upsetting the Representation S of oneself and others and by offering glances to us on the world, thus made it possible to unify lifestyles, vestimentary practices with the choice of the place where we can pay our attention. They offer to us syntheses and Représentation S of what is the Réalité.

Mobile images: the cinema

The arrival of the “mobile” images i.e. Cinema, made only amplify this phenomenon of worship and collective interest for the Image. This phenomenon of great width, which touches the mass, i.e. each individual likely to reach information since different the Média S, is thus at the origin of what is called today the Culture of mass.
Les Média S succeeded, thanks to the “bus” facts which interest everyone on a mode which does not touch with nothing important, to center the men around same the Représentation S of the fact that is reality.

The Broadcasting

In 1920, the radio was diffused still little in the hearths, since there were only 500.000 radios. In 1940, at the time of the famous Call of June 18th of the General de Gaulle, there was 5,5 million stations.

The feeling of touching and being able to homogenize the public ones scattered took part in the development of the Publicité and thus of the Intérêt of the Industriel S in the takeover of the means of diffusion.

Americanization: the case of France

With leaving the Second world war, by negotiating the cancellation of the French debt towards the the United States, Leon Blum had to accept, at the time of the Accords Blum-Byrnes of May 1946, that the Hollywood Film S can be projected in the French rooms of Cinéma. It followed a diffusion of the American way off life , which took part in a certain form of development of the Culture of mass.

A Popular culture

The development of the Culture of mass also integrated the working and country mediums quickly, victims of a Culture described then like lower. They thus little by little were taken for target of the phenomena of industrialization Culturelle as well the men as the women and the children.

This phenomenon was possible thanks to the slips of the values of the higher classes towards that lower (popularization of the middle-class values). Industrialization made it possible to develop and sell less expensive products to place at the disposal of each product which went from oneself in other mediums: camera, library (in pine not out of noble wooden) with paperbacks…

By justifying the power of an economic model, the creation of the World Fairs (at the beginning of the XIXe century) remains the headlight example of this “popularization” of the practices Culturelle S. By popularizing sciences and by exciting the curiosity of the spectator thanks to great demonstrations in which all the populations of the cities and the countries are invited, one thus could bind industrial progress and social progress.

If one speaks about Popular culture, they is that the tools used are usable by all, without reference of social class or geographic origin. Indeed, the Culture of mass can be done on a scale a country or of a continent and then with universalization and the means of communication, the ideas are diffused and become homogeneous.

Molière, Goethe or Shakespeare (who are each national literary symbol) do not allow an international exchange inevitably and do not put the individuals on the same scale of values at the international plan. Contrary to Harry Potter, product of a publisher supranational and translated in many languages.

According to the R.Hamilton designer, the Popular culture (i.e. conceived for an audience of mass) is defined as a tool easy diffusing itself in the short run, good market, produced in series, intended for youth, spiritual, sexy, faked, tempting and been dependant on the big business.

This definition can thus apply and explain the international success of groups of “pop music” which flood today our TV screens whose esthetics and the artistic contents want to be representative of a company turned towards the consumption of mass.

By thus taking the example of a group of music, a recording company which would like to create some of any part, could apply the characteristics of the definition of Hamilton: goes down for hearing of mass (radio, television, Internet, discs and lower prices of the supports which makes it possible to use these tools…), transitory and quickly forgotten (effect of mode, of innovation thus replaced by another as of the first signs of commercial weakness), good market (the distribution supports like the discs or Internet cost little to manufacture in a mass production) products in series, surface (the texts are without claim and the harmonies are simple), music conveyed by young, spiritual, sexy and tempting singers. Bound to the big business (the recording companies are multinationals today)

This production Culturelle thus makes it possible to aim at many teenagers of all the social origins. The system proceeds thus to a setting in scene generalized of the desires via the objects “worships”, based on the fast consumption of signs and the development of the modes.

The political economist Benjamin Barber thus observes there the birth of a Culture Mondiale, impelled by the total firms, relayed by before urban and mondialized guard. He calls this Culture “Vidéologie”, “reduced to L state of food product, or the dress makes the monk and where the look becomes ideology. ”

Financial industrialization and stakes

The Photography, the Cinema, the radio and today Internet are forms of diffusion Culturelle S directly related to the machine. The combination of technical, industrial and artistic factors for the production of goods Culturel S in great quantity means the installation of considerable stakes Financier S.

The Culture of mass represents the whole of the productions, the practices and the values modelled by the “agents” of industry Culturelle. In this relation between technique and Culture, the recourse to technological advance as factor of productivity then constitutes a decisive element in any passage to a mass production.

With the Publicity, the industrialists will be able to associate with the images a commercial impact by encouraging the Consommation. This advertizing attraction represents then an aubaine for holding of the means of diffusion which can then hope for a perpetuation of their activities. Publicities thus took part in the creation of the first national radios by financing the technical installations.

In the medium of the Cinema, companies like Pathé or Gaumont were constituted to be able to control the diffusion of films and to thus create circuits. They then develop the concept of “cinema of exclusiveness” obliging the spectators to come in their rooms to attend the representations of films with large budget. The attachment of the public to this type of cinema will make it possible industries to perennialize themselves and thus to invest in the development of their activities by establishing many rooms and by financing research and the teams being able to bring innovation in this medium.

Criticisms

The Culture of mass quickly found its detractors. As of the Monarchy of July (1830 - 1848), voices protested against “the devastations of a Culture considered to be stupefying, pernicious and dangerous for the social order”. (Dominique Kalifa); whereas are worked out the Marxist theories calling into question capitalism.

Will be born then at the 20th century, a whole movement expressing its concerns towards the capacities of the new media to the endoctrination or ideological handling whereas the principles of rationalization, standardization and division of the labor are opposed quickly. (quickly manufactured, quickly consumed, quickly replaced). The function of the Culture of mass is not whereas levelling, the alienation and the endoctrination of a public perceived like a homogeneous and passive mass.

Indeed, the media controlled by the industrialists, choose the artists or the authors to be emphasized according to their potentiality at touching more possible many people. This made it possible to impose to the authors, wanting to be published, a schedule of conditions (case of the press). Creation loses its mission of alternative then criticizes and the Culture opens with the mechanisms domination of those which have the means of diffusion.

According to Bertrand Lemonnier, “art does not seek to conform to the tastes of the public or, as in the abstraction, to move away, but to follow from them the standards posed by the mass media and publicity. ” The massive development of the Culture of mass to the the United States, and what one called world “the Américanisation” in the Thirties, will bring many intellectuals and sociologists to be considered the influence of the Culture of mass on our lifestyles.

The school of Frankfurt, group of German intellectuals brought together around the founded research institute social in 1923, is known to be leaning on the appearance of the Culture of mass in the modern societies. It will develop of it a criticism using the concept of the " industry culturelle". According to Walter Benjamin, the photographs and new technologies of the reproduction produced the loss of the ritual function of the work of art to the profit of the exposure in series. Technology is put thus at the service of the social system and its reproduction. Two other sociologists of the school of Frankfurt, Theodore Adorno and max Horkheimer regard art instrument of release and as driving force in the fight to change the world. The Culture of mass is then the symptom of a Civilization which programs the self-destruction of the reason and the decline of the critical conscience. “The spirit cannot survive when it is defined like a good Culturel and intended for food purposes. The tide of accurate informations and domesticated recreations makes at the same time the men more clever as it them abêtit”.

According to them, the Culture of mass is thus only one means of garrotter the conscience of the man. Since it gives the illusion of the choice, that it automates consumption and the identification, that it makes impossible dissidence, that the consumer is tiny room to the state of object and that it substitutes conformism for autonomy.

The policies have in this direction included/understood well the advantage of this garrotage of the consciences, more especially as with the industrial era and the appearance of capitalism the political power became under the control of the industrialists and besides of the owners of the companies or in any case subjected to the economic principles since we see well that the political programs put forward the topics like the growth or the economic revival… Gustave the Good, a sociologist having inspired Hitler or Mussolini declares: “The use of the modern means of communication is a means of controlling these uncultivated and violent entities which the masses constitute”.

Criticisms can be also brought when to the capacity of the Culture of mass to homogénéifier the individuals to create a company with the common democratic values. The standardization of the offers and the references means less the constitution of great homogeneous community than its scattering in the many public ones differentiated since capitalism today will seek to find targets marketing in each category of population.

The practices Culturelle S thus invest the diversity of the choices and the modes of appropriation.

See too

References

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