educational level and social status (popularization of science, comics with a summary of the plots of classical literature, etc.).

By the end of the 20th century, the strengthening of the second direction of masculture (adaptation of complex plots for simplified perception by an unprepared audience) allows scientists to talk about the emergence of midculture (culture of the “middle level”), which somewhat narrows the gap between elite and mass cultures.

One of the manifestations of mass, mainly youth, culture has become pop culture (from the English popular: popular, public). This is a set of neo-avant-garde views on art, formed in the 60s of the twentieth century. It is characterized by the denial of the experience of previous generations; the search for new forms in art, a lifestyle that expresses the ideological protest of young people against the sanctimonious morality of modern Western society.

Despite the seeming democratic nature, masculu active creator spiritual values ​​to the level passive user

mass culture, programmed for its thoughtless and soulless consumption (from a producing position to an appropriating one).

Mass culture is always a devaluation of high cultural patterns, an imitation of familiarization with culture.

Therefore, masculture as a phenomenon, although derived from culture itself, but, in fact, far removed from culture in its high understanding and meaning, should be called paracultural (from the Greek. para: near, at, about), i.e., near-cultural, phenomenon.

The only way to oppose the standardization of culture and the expansion of mascult is to familiarize yourself with the values ​​of genuine culture in the process of spiritual education of the individual, including in the course of cultural studies and other humanitarian disciplines.

5.4. Elite culture

The culturological opposition to mass culture is elitist culture (from the French e lite: the best, selective, chosen).

Its origins are in the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus and Plato, in which for the first time intellectual elite as a special professional group - the custodian and bearer of higher knowledge.

IN the Renaissance, the problem of the elite was posed by F. Petrarch

V his discourse "On Genuine Nobility". For the humanists of that time, "rabble", "despicable" people are uneducated fellow citizens, self-satisfied ignoramuses. In relation to them, the humanists themselves appear as an intellectual elite.

The theory of elites takes shape at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The founders of the theory of elites are the Italian scientists V. Pareto (1848–1923), G. Mosca (1858–1941), R. Michels (1876–1936). Before the Second World War, the theory of elites became widespread except for Italy - in Germany and France, after the war - in the United States. The recognized theorist of the elite was the Spanish philosopher J. Ortega y Gaset, who believed that there is an elite in every social class.

According to the theory of elites, the necessary components of any social structure are the highest privileged stratum or strata that perform the functions of managing and developing culture.

This is the elite.

The elite is the part of society most capable of spiritual activity, endowed with high moral and aesthetic inclinations, which ensures progress.

The elite is characterized by a high degree of activity and productivity. It is usually opposed to mass.

There are many definitions of the elite, we will name only some of its specific features.

The elite is made up of people with such qualities as organization, will, ability to unite to achieve a goal (G. Mosca); enjoying the greatest prestige, status, wealth in society, having the highest sense of responsibility, intellectual or moral

superiority over the mass (J. Ortega y Gaset); this is a creative minority as opposed to an uncreative majority (A. Toynbee).

According to V. Pareto, society is a pyramid with an elite on top. The most gifted from the bottom rise to the top, replenishing the ranks of the ruling elite, whose members, in turn, degrading, sink down into the masses. There is a circulation, or cycle, of elites; renewal of the elite is facilitated by social mobility. Alternation, change of elites is the law of the existence of society. (As mentioned above, the idea of ​​society as a social pyramid is also contained in the sociology of P. A. Sorokin, who also developed the problems of social mobility.)

Science has developed a classification of elite theories: 1) biological - the elite are people occupying the highest

places in society due to their biological and genetic origin;

2)psychological - based on the recognition of the exclusively psychological qualities of the elite group;

3) technical - understands the elite as a set of people who own and manage technical production;

4)organizational - refers to the elite of executives, including the bureaucratically organized bureaucracy;

5)functional - classifies as an elite people who perform the most important functions in society, in a certain group or in a certain territory;

6)distribution - considers the elite of those who receive maximum material and non-material benefits;

7)artistic and creative- includes in the elite representatives of various spheres of spiritual production (science, art, religion, culture).

The elite is characterized by cohesion and activity, the ability to develop stable patterns of thinking, assessments and forms of communication, standards of behavior, preferences and tastes.

A striking example of the development of such samples and standards are the elite culture and elite art.

Typical of elite art is the aesthetic isolationism of "pure art" or "art for art's sake".

Elite art is a trend in Western art culture that creates art for the few, for the elite, for the aesthetic and spiritual elite, incomprehensible to the general public, the masses.

Elite art became especially widespread at the beginning of the 20th century. It manifested itself in a variety of directions of decadence and modernism (abstractionism in painting; surrealism in the visual arts, literature, theater and cinema; dodecaphony1 in music), which focused on the creation of art of "pure form", the art of true aesthetic pleasure, devoid of any practical meaning and social values.

Supporters of elite art opposed themselves to mass art, amorphous mass, tendencies of "massization" in culture, opposed the vulgar ideals of a well-fed, petty-bourgeois life.

The theoretical understanding of elite culture is reflected in the works of F. Nietzsche, V. Pareto, J. Ortega y Gaset and other philosophers.

The most complete and consistent concept of elite culture is presented in the works of J. Ortega y Gaset, who gave a philosophical assessment of the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century. In the book "Dehumanization of Art" (1925), he divided people into "the people" (mass) and the elite - a particularly gifted minority, the creators of genuine culture. He believed that the Impressionists, Futurists, Surrealists, Abstractionists split the audience of art into two groups: artistic elite(outstanding people who understand the new art) and the general public (ordinary people who are not able to understand it). Therefore, the artist-creator consciously turns to the elite, and not to the masses, turns away from the layman.

1 Dodecaphony (from Greek dōdeka: twelve + phōnē: sound) is a method of composing music developed in the 20th century by the Austrian composer A. Schoenberg. Based on a specific sequence of 12 sounds of various pitches.

Choose the correct judgments about culture and its varieties and write down the numbers under which they are indicated.

1) Obtaining commercial benefits is the goal of creating works of mass art.

2) Elite culture reflects the urgent spiritual needs of the broad masses.

3) Elite art is designed for a narrow circle of consumers, prepared to perceive works that are complex in form and content.

4) Works of mass culture, as a rule, are anonymous.

5) Works of folk culture are often transmitted orally.

Explanation.

Elite culture

Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture, such as 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 critics, frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is "art for art's sake".

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

The avant-garde trends in music, painting, cinema, complex literature of a philosophical nature can be attributed to the elite culture. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of the "ivory tower", fenced off by their art from real 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 trends 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 elite culture, folk culture is created by anonymous creators who do not have professional training. The authors of folk creations are 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 (retelling of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), mass (carnival processions). Folklore is another name for folk art, which is created by various segments of the population. Folklore is localized, that is, associated with the traditions of the given area, and democratic, since everyone who wishes participates in its creation. Modern manifestations of folk culture include anecdotes, urban legends.

Mass culture

Mass or public culture 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 the mass media (radio, print, television, records, tape recorders, video) penetrated most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Popular and pop music is a vivid example of mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Mass culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or folk culture. But it has the widest audience. It satisfies the momentary needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, samples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and folk culture. Pop culture is a slang term for mass culture, and kitsch is a variation of it.

1) Obtaining commercial gain is the goal of creating works of mass art - yes, that's right.

2) Elite culture reflects the urgent spiritual needs of the broad masses - no, that's not true.

3) Elite art is designed for a narrow circle of consumers, prepared to perceive works that are complex in form and content - yes, that's right.

4) Works of mass culture, as a rule, are anonymous - no, that's not true.

5) Works of folk culture are often transmitted orally - yes, that's right.

Elite culture has rather blurred boundaries, especially at the present time with the tendencies of the elements of the mass to strive for the expression of individuality. Its peculiarity is that it is doomed to be misunderstood by most people, and this is one of its main characteristics. In this article, we will find out the elite culture, what are its main characteristics and compare it with the mass one.

What it is

Elite culture is the same "high culture". It is opposed to the mass, which is one of the methods of its detection in the general cultural process. This concept was first singled out by C. Manheim and J. Ortega y Gasset in their works, where they deduced it precisely as the antithesis of the concept of mass culture. They meant by high culture that which contains a semantic core capable of developing human individuality, and from which the continuation of the creation of its other elements can follow. Another direction they singled out is the presence of special verbal elements accessible to narrow social groups: for example, Latin and Sanskrit for clergy.

Elite and mass culture: opposition

They are opposed to each other by the type of impact on consciousness, as well as by the quality of the meanings that their elements contain. Thus, the mass is aimed at a more superficial perception, which does not require specific knowledge and special intellectual efforts to understand the cultural product. At present, there is an increased spread of mass culture due to the process of globalization, which, in turn, is spread through the media and stimulated by the capitalist structure of society. unlike the elite, it is intended for a wide range of people. Now we see elements of it everywhere, and it is especially evident in television programs and cinema.

So, Hollywood cinema can be opposed to arthouse cinema. At the same time, the first type of films focuses the viewer's attention not on the meaning and idea of ​​the story, but on the special effects of the video sequence. Here, high-quality cinema implies an interesting design, an unexpected, but easy-to-perceive plot.

Elite culture is represented by arthouse films, which are evaluated according to different criteria than Hollywood products of this kind, the main of which is meaning. So, the quality of the video sequence in such films is often underestimated. At first glance, the reason for the low quality of shooting is either the lack of good funding, or the dilettantism of the director. However, this is not the case: in arthouse cinema, the function of video is to convey the meaning of an idea. Special effects can distract from this, so they are not typical for products of this format. Arthouse ideas are original and deep. Very often, in the presentation of a simple story, a deep meaning is hidden from a superficial understanding, a real tragedy of a person is revealed. When watching these films, you can often see that the director himself is trying to find the answer to the question posed and is studying the characters in the course of shooting. Predicting the plot of an arthouse movie is almost impossible.

Characteristics of high culture

Elite culture has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from mass culture:

1. Its elements are aimed at displaying and studying the deep processes of human psychology.
2. It has a closed structure, accessible to understanding only outstanding individuals.
3. Differs in originality of artistic solutions.
4. Contains a minimum of figurative means.
5. Has the ability to express something new.
6. It is an approbation of what in the future may become a classic or trivial art.

Depending on who creates the culture and what is its level, sociologists distinguish three of its forms: elite, popular, mass.

Elite (high) culture is created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture (for example, painting by Picasso) 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 critics, frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is "art for art's sake".

Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quests of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the mass media (radio, print, television) penetrated most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Pop music is a vivid example of this: it is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Mass culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or folk culture. But she has the widest audience and she is the author. It satisfies the momentary needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, its samples, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and folk culture. High culture denotes the passions and habits of the townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, the ruling elite, and mass culture denotes the culture of the lower classes. The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture: classical music is high, and popular music is mass, Fellini films are high, and action films are mass, Picasso's paintings are high, and popular prints are mass. However, there are genres of literature (fantasy, detective stories and comics) that are always classified as popular or popular culture, but never as high culture. The same thing happens with concrete works of art.

High culture is created not by an ethnic group or people, but by an educated part of society - writers, artists, philosophers, scientists. As a rule, high culture is initially experimental, or avant-garde, in nature. For the first time, those artistic techniques are applied that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later. Experts sometimes call a period of 50 years. Today, the avant-garde, especially in popular culture, becomes fashion almost the next day.

Folk culture consists of two types - popular and folklore culture. Popular culture describes today's life, customs, songs, dances of the people, and folk culture describes its past. Legends, fairy tales and other genres of folklore were created in the past, and today they exist as a historical heritage. Some of this legacy is still being performed today, which means that part of the folklore culture has entered popular culture, which, in addition to historical legends, is constantly replenished with new formations, for example, modern urban folklore. Thus, in folk culture, in turn, two levels can be distinguished - a high one, associated with folklore and including folk legends, fairy tales, epics, old dances, etc., and a lower one, limited by the so-called pop culture. In terms of execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (retelling of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), mass (carnival processions). The audience of folk culture is always the majority of society. So it was in traditional and industrial society. The situation changes only in a post-industrial society.

Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quests of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the mass media (radio, print, television) penetrated most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Pop music is a vivid example of this: it is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Mass culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or folk culture. But she has the widest audience and she is the author. It satisfies the momentary needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, its samples, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and folk culture. High culture denotes the passions and habits of the townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, the ruling elite, and mass culture denotes the culture of the lower classes. The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture: classical music is high, and popular music is mass, Fellini films are high, and action films are mass, Picasso's paintings are high, and popular prints are mass. However, there are genres of literature (fantasy, detective stories and comics) that are always classified as popular or popular culture, but never as high culture. The same thing happens with concrete works of art.

High culture is created not by an ethnic group or people, but by an educated part of society - writers, artists, philosophers, scientists. As a rule, high culture is initially experimental, or avant-garde, in nature. For the first time, those artistic techniques are applied that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later. Experts sometimes call a period of 50 years. Today, the avant-garde, especially in popular culture, becomes fashion almost the next day.

1.1.2. Mass and popular culture

In culturology, clear ideas have not yet been formed about how mass and popular culture ultimately differ. Some culturologists, due to the similarity of the two cultures, propose to identify and consider them as two names for one phenomenon. Then the same artifacts are credited to popular culture as to popular culture, namely popular music, Playboy magazine, television, football, baseball, McDonald's hamburgers, discos, and even Shakespeare's theater.

Popular culture in literature is perceived as an understudy for the term "mass culture" and therefore both words are written like this: mass/popular.

The second consider mass culture to be a subordinate form of popular culture. So, T. Wolf argues: with the exception of high culture, all other names can be considered subtitles of popular culture. In this case, particular types of popular culture are mass culture, mass media (in particular, pornographic magazines and television), forms of mass leisure (football and baseball), mass consumption (hamburgers).

However, others, including Russell Ney, propose to separate the two phenomena and consider them independent varieties of culture. According to them, popular culture implies the most superficial, directly observable layer of culture, located between the elite and folk culture. This is the culture of the majority of the population or the culture of the middle class, if it is such a majority.

Sometimes a value aspect is introduced into the classification and popular culture is considered a more civilized form of mass culture, since the first assumes some professionalism and artistry that are not inherent in the second. The first turns into the second when it is commercialized. In this case, mass culture appears as a reduced, vulgar example of popular or high culture. Since in life we ​​often encounter low-grade products - erotic and entertainment shows, low-quality publications, etc., we have developed a certain idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpopular culture as a tasteless and immoral fake for real culture, characterized by an unhealthy interest in sex, psychopathology, violence and so on.

Age differences are also noted between the two types of culture: popular culture is a system of values ​​and a way of life for those over 50 years old, and mass culture is the lot of young people, the so-called teenagers.

Popular culture is a set of daily activities, skills, habits, beliefs and tastes inherent in the majority of the population and the dominant culture, and less often - minorities and subcultures. For most specialists in mass and popular culture, culture is the typical way in which the members of a given society spend their time off work, and thus it is the equivalent of popular culture. For example, mass spectacles and shows, television and hot dogs are typical features of the daily life of Americans today, while theatrical dramas and political disputes were typical features of the life of the ancient Greeks. Such an understanding of culture excludes laws, politics, religion, labor, but includes mass culture (Hollywood), mass leisure (sports) and many subcultures (disco dances).

The words "popular culture" and "population" are of the same root. They concern the population, the majority of the inhabitants of a given country or part of it. It follows that popular culture encompasses the mores, manners, behaviors, and lifestyles of large groups of people. The term "popular" means "widespread", "folk", "widely known". Popularization means the promotion of something, the transformation of the little-known into the public and widely known, at the same time close to the understanding and thinking of ordinary people. In those cases when we consider the expressions "majority of the population" and "people" as synonyms, then the terms "popular culture" and "folk culture" should be considered equivalent, denoting the same thing. If we invest in the concept of “people” an additional ethical, heroic-epic meaning, i.e., something more than the totality of people currently living in a given territory, then it is necessary to separate both terms, and to associate “folk culture” mainly with folklore, and not with popular culture.

In 1895 was invented cinema, which has become a means of mass art, close to everyone - without distinction of gender, age, religion, which does not require even elementary literacy for its perception. The widespread dissemination of photography, which became a mass medium of information realism, also belongs to the same period. The third major shift was associated with the invention and introduction of the gramophone record, which gave rise to another section of the future mass culture (before the appearance of this term itself) - light music, which captured radio broadcasting, and then all forms of sound recording and shared with screen creativity the glory of "entertainment" and "corruption" of the masses.

The First World War in many ways contributed to the disappointment in the old values ​​introduced by classical culture. It also compromised the former ruling elites, who were unable to cope with social and national contradictions and conflicts. After the end of the war mass media were intensively developed first in America and then in Western Europe in the 1920s, first during the post-war boom and then the “Great Depression”, when, as is sometimes believed, in conditions of mass ruin, unemployment, poverty and despair, it was “ Hollywood saved America from social upheaval." Of course, in addition to mass culture, society used effective social programs associated with the "New Deal" F. Roosevelt. However, no less importance was given to mass culture, with a corresponding nationalist bias, in Nazi Germany.

Thus, both technological and social factors are involved in the formation of mass culture. The formation of mass culture is associated with the completion of the formation of an industrial society and its maturity, with the improvement of mass media.

1.3. Mass media in popular culture

According to the popular expression of Western sociologists, modern society is dominated by three MMMs: mass society, mass culture and mass media. Mass media are also an important part of modern mass culture. And perhaps the most important, since it is believed that almost all modern mass culture in one way or another passes through the mass media.

It is through mass media that mass culture penetrates into the widest layers, the most remote corners both within national societies and globally. Through the mass media, a process of "cultural homogenization" is going on, during which similar tastes and forms of "cultural consumption" are spread among both the privileged and the low-income sections of the population. The whole society can be convinced that "the rich also cry" (as one of the Mexican television series was called). This in itself will not lead to a change in the ratio of different layers in the sphere of production, and politics will also be determined by the game.

A. Kravchenko notes that mass culture includes only those elements of culture that are broadcast through the mass media, or mass communication channels - these are radio, television, cinema, and the press. With their invention, the boundaries between the city and the countryside, and then between countries, were first erased. According to I. Lamond, these three criteria - television, radio and the press - distinguish mass culture from popular culture. "Mass media are a form of what mass culture is the content of.

By the 60s. 20th century the technical possibilities of mass culture have increased manifold. In addition to static photography, cinema has come, the possibilities of radio and television have increased many times over, satellite communications, combined with the minimization of receiving systems and their reliability, provide a stable network of penetration of mass culture. Cassettes, CDs and videos are coming to supplement and replace the old television. The first performance in the USA by the rock band The Beatles, which took place in 1964 at Carnegie Hall in New York, was listened to not only by 2,000 visitors to the hall, but also by 73 million people on television. Later, thanks to satellite communications, such events became available to almost 2 billion people - almost half of the inhabitants of the earth. Thus, mass media serve both as carriers of culture and as a means of manipulation.

Of course, various variants of mass culture play an important role in the implementation of mass communication and dissemination of information. Therefore, audiovisual technologies are considered as part of the mass media, although, as we see, they play a crucial role in the field of mass culture. The ability to quickly and almost completely reach the widest audiences turns the media into the most important factor that transforms the entire system of spiritual production.

An equally important feature of popular culture is hybridization mass media, i.e. combining into a whole a variety of technical achievements. This is how cinema, radio and television came into being. Television, whose function is education, information and entertainment, has combined almost all the previous forms of information - school, cinema, radio. In turn, even before the advent of television, radio accumulated a newspaper (news releases), a book (radio shows), a theater and a concert hall (radio performances, concert broadcasts), a stadium (sports reports), and a stage (playing records). As for the cinema, it brought us closer to various aspects of the visual sphere - from photography to theater, circus and stage.

Traditional theatrical culture turned out to be widely accessible. Commercial entertainment enterprises, which had become a feature of urban culture since the second half of the 19th century, faced competition. Now the actors did not play on the stage, but in front of a microphone and a movie camera; people could choose whether to go to theaters and concert halls or listen to the radio and watch TV. Opera singers, musicians and journalists began to work on the radio. Cinema, the youngest of all forms of entertainment, flourished at first, capitalizing on the experience of radio and the popularity of movie stars, until television arrived. Traditional forms of culture and leisure were changing their status and experiencing a financial crisis. With the advent of radio broadcasting and television, theater and cinema lost their audience.

Today there is an expression "Culture in a Hurry". Radio, television and the press satisfy the basic condition of mass culture: a momentary reaction to what is happening and, therefore, the absence of any selectivity. With the advent of communications satellites, news began to spread around the world almost instantly. At the same time, a huge audience gets the same culture."

popular culture like more mobile and technically equipped, began to crowd out traditional forms of art. At first, the cinema lured almost all theater goers, and then it was itself supplanted by television. The struggle for the audience, competition is a new phenomenon in the field of culture, which did not exist before. Competing for the return of the audience, theater and cinema were forced to look for new forms, style, language of expression, which had a fruitful effect on their further development. The displacement or crowding out of traditional art forms is explained greater accessibility mass culture, proximity to the audience And a higher level of comfort.

However, the “visual civilization”, which has replaced speech and writing, has not only positive, but also negative sides. Some experts believe that visual information leads to early maturation of children and infantilism in adults. It causes the same reaction in people regardless of the level of education, affecting the lower levels of the psyche (emotions and feelings) to the detriment of the mind.

Mass society is contradictory. On the one hand, it made books available to the public, and with them made public literacy and scientific knowledge. On the other hand, it is mass society that discourages people from being interested in deep and interested reading. The crisis of reading in the West is one of the varieties of the crisis of culture.

Thus, mass culture can be attributed to those elements of culture that are broadcast through the mass media or mass communication channels - these are radio, television, cinema, and the press. The advent of modern mass media has made it possible to replicate one cultural product in thousands and millions of copies, and therefore, reduce the cost of each and make it accessible to the masses. Industrial and especially post-industrial society is associated with two important processes - the spread mass production and the advent mass leisure.

1.4. Elements of mass culture

Specialists include a very wide range of phenomena among the elements, types and means of expression of mass culture. So, for example, A.Ya. Flier names the following: the media, school and university education, ideology and propaganda, the entertainment industry, including mass staged and spectacular performances (from sports and circus to erotic ones), professional sports (as a spectacle for fans), organized recreational leisure institutions (clubs, discos, dance floors, etc.), the recreational leisure industry (resorts, physical education, bodybuilding and aerobics, sports tourism, medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic services), the intellectual leisure industry (amateur arts, collecting, hobby groups, scientific and educational institutions, intellectual games, etc.), slot machines and computer games, all kinds of dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias, catalogs, the Internet, show business, cinema, etc.

1.5. The mechanism of mass culture and its functions

Mass culture is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon characteristic of a mass society, possible due to the high level of development of communication and information systems, a high degree of urbanization and industrialization. It is characterized by a high degree of alienation of the individual, loss of individuality, replaced by selfishness. Hence the idiocy of the masses and their easy manipulation by the elites through the imposition of cultural and behavioral stamps through the channels of mass communications.

Mass society, the environment for the functioning of mass culture, is characterized by extreme alienation of the individual, his “abandonment”, the difficulty of his true socialization, communication and creativity, which is replaced by standard models of consumption that mass culture imposes, offering its average models of including a person in social mechanisms. Thus, a "vicious circle" is created: alienation - "abandonment" - "illusions" of mass consciousness - models of averaged standard socialization - consumption - alienation. The development of technology, which becomes an end in itself at the stage of mass society, according to J. Ellul, destroys the traditional values ​​of all societies, creates a single "emasculated" culture. It deprives a person of freedom and disfigures his spiritual world. There is a disintegration of the system of values ​​of modern society, which, on the other hand, according to E. Fromm, leads to the absolutization of technical and the leveling of the value of human existence.

However, another trend has emerged in the understanding of mass culture. The imaginary political apathy turned into an increase in social tension. Conformist consciousness revealed itself as complex and contradictory, since it showed opposite signs at different levels of sociality. The influence of mass culture is mediated by a huge number of factors. The impact of the manipulating elites, through mass communications, runs into real barriers put forward by the consciousness of the individual. It can be conformal and non-conformal, malleable and stable, which is also due to the inclusion of the individual in certain groups. However, modern mass society hinders the realization of deep personal needs inherent in each individual. A person’s desire to find himself and establish truly personal relationships with other people either degenerates into spiritual passivity, causing standard behavior, or is noticed by an attraction to “idols”, to false landmarks used by an individual to develop an illusory idea of ​​himself.

In the conditions of a traditional society, human behavior was mainly regulated by the action of spontaneous economic forces and traditions, and not by direct pressure from social institutions. In modern society, there is a need for direct regulation of people's behavior, for the unification of spiritual life, the standardization of intellectual reactions within the complex social structure of our time.

What changes in spiritual production did mass culture bring with it? As K. Razlogov emphasizes, this process meant not only the introduction of another type and variant of culture, along with others already established and established, but a change in the very type of culture functioning. This change can be compared with what happened at the turning point between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the era of the gradual pushing back of the monopoly of religious spirituality and church art began in favor of the secular culture of the enlightened strata. Whatever the achievements and spread of this secular spirituality, the church still remained the monopolist of the spiritual life of the masses. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. both of these rivals were forced to cede influence on the minds and souls of people to a new, rude newcomer, who, unlike competitors, had much greater technical capabilities, which were developed by talented inventors - “commercial structures”.

In social terms, mass culture is associated with the irreversible processes of urbanization and the rupture of traditional forms of sociality, patriarchal ties between people and generations, which until then provided stable local little worlds with familiar orientations, supplemented by religious values. Increasingly, the church was powerless to provide reliable guidance in the face of increasingly complex life. Mental stress, inevitable in the course of a wide migration from the countryside to the city and from the Old World to the New World, along with expanded opportunities for a new “settlement” in life, required a new spiritual, mental and mental product.

As K. Razlogov writes further, “the development of production, its complication and a sharp increase in the expenditure of psychic energy also played a key role.” If in the era of classical capitalism sleep and “gross pleasures” were enough to restore strength, then new types of production, immeasurably increasing intellectual workload, just as significantly expand the role of artistic culture in recreational processes. “The evolution of the entire education system is moving in the same direction, especially the increase in the duration of study, during which, again, intellectual energy is wasted. If we take into account that it is young people who have the greatest reserve of free time for expanding contacts with art and direct participation in cultural creativity, then a tilt towards a compensatory-entertaining beginning will appear completely inevitable.”

The functionality of culture in a mass society can be defined in several dimensions. It meets the needs of a diverse and complex orientation in the context of the need to master various roles that change depending on the situation, rapid changes in the nature of production, lifestyle, etc. Of course, this happens mostly through the banalization and simplification of explanatory reasons and circumstances, usually reduced to well-recognized differences “ours” - “aliens”, “good” - “bad”, “kindness” - “cruelty”, “case” - “ everyday life." Turning to the grassroots and everyday spheres of behavior, mass culture affirms understandable and stereotypical ideas about human relations, without requiring a person to make efforts to overcome himself. It appeals to the life instincts that operate as conditions of constant life support.

Thus, primary function of this culture ensure socialization and vitality of a person in the conditions of a complicated, changeable, unstable and unreliable environment of a big city, accustom to new social roles and values, ways to regulate their behavior and activities in a diverse environment, relieve psychological stress and resolve conflict situations.

For a huge contingent of people of different ages and genders, this culture gives functionally useful ideas about the necessary style of behavior, lifestyle, career, relationships between people, ways to realize their aspirations.

According to the concept of the well-known Canadian sociologist and culturologist G.M. McLuhan, the era of mass media and electronic information is radically changing both the human environment and himself. New media and computers destroy space and time on the planet, eliminate all national borders, linking the most remote corners into a single network. The person himself is forced to think not “linearly sequentially”, but at intervals, mosaically, and it is the global media network that recreates the universality of spiritual regulation.

Another important function mass culture - satisfy the need for recreation and distract the individual from the intense race in the spheres of success in life. This culture is formed not only on the basis of such entertainment genres as variety art, comedies, comics, spectator sports, etc. Its most significant mechanism is the ever-expanding consumption in the most diverse areas, which provides, although unified, but constantly updated and varied way of life. The strength of mass culture lies in the fact that it not separated from consumption in the broadest sense of the word and from the very way of life. Food, clothing, housing, household appliances, household items, education - everything comes to a person through the mechanisms of mass culture, in which normative and prestigious aspects are intertwined with functional ones. Even in the eyes of the elite, a spiritual product acquires value only in so far as it becomes an object of mass demand. Unrecognized geniuses are out of fashion. Their place was taken idols and idols made by "dream factories".

Mass culture is characterized by universality, covering a wide middle part of modern society, affecting in one way or another both the wealthy elite and the marginal strata. In a mass society, the system of stratification is being restructured, caused by the growth of the middle class (more than 50% of the population), i.e., the convergence of the main social groups and strata, if not in place in the production system, then at least in political life and lifestyle .

Mass culture saves the individual from the need for a long and difficult introduction to high culture. As K. Razlogov emphasizes, “it is difficult for a mass audience to perceive a work whose author diligently constructs an aesthetic distance between the literary text and the viewer, reader, listener. Thus, the artist facilitates the work of the critic, whose task is precisely the analysis of aesthetic specificity. Mass culture, on the contrary, ignores this distance. If elitist art to a certain extent, although by no means completely, is characterized by the inhibition of direct human experiences, then mass culture is based on universal psychological, even psychophysiological mechanisms of perception, which are activated regardless of the education and degree of preparedness of the audience ... In order to truly to enjoy, it is better to be artistically uneducated person. Artistic education here is not a stimulus, but an obstacle, because mass culture, which is directed mainly to the emotional sphere, by definition, does not require any additional knowledge that hinders the appreciation of works of this type.”

This generality, as suitability for the widest possible range of the population, does not exclude the diversity and structuredness of mass culture, depending on social, age, and subcultural differences. A huge variety of genres can be attributed to this culture, including detective, adventure, fantasy, melodrama, mysticism, erotica, books about UFOs, mysterious phenomena, jazz and rock, mystical practices, oriental systems of psycho-training, etc.

Replication is by no means necessarily a vulgarization of the high and unique (although losses are possible and inevitable here). According to the research of art historians, in the modern era, acquaintance with the replicated creations of culture in no way precludes a deep penetration into the unique essence of the originals.

Therefore, it is unjustified to judge the function of mass culture from the positions of high aesthetics and, relying on them, take measures to limit this culture, thereby destroying the cultural mechanism for relieving the enormous tensions that arise in everyday existence, moods of fatigue and indifference, cruelty and aggressiveness, despair and confusion. , resentment and fear.

Summing up the above in this chapter, we will try to formulate the concept of mass culture, highlight its main features.

2. POSITIVE AND CRITICAL EVALUATIONS OF MASS CULTURE

The spread of mass culture has given rise to scientific studies of this phenomenon. In the United States, and then in other countries, the sociology of mass culture was formed. In some concepts, mass culture is viewed as a positive phenomenon, reflecting the growth of living standards and education, and, moreover, being a factor in the democratization of public life.

Mass culture, according to some domestic culturologists, performs a number of positive functions. One of them is to introduce millions of people to the values ​​of high and popular culture Since 1920, 80 million records with Mozart's music have been released in the United States, the number of symphony orchestras has increased 10 times, people attend concerts 10 times more often than baseball games, each 400 million copies of books are sold annually. Quantitative growth should be seen as a qualitative change in the cultural situation in the world, which happened due to the introduction of technological achievements.

As soon as it comes to mass culture, according to the Russian sociologist A.B. Hoffmann, “even the most impartial researchers sometimes lose their objectivity. It happens that even cultural figures, convinced of their own adherence to democratic values, consider it their duty to condemn it. In this case, various kinds of tricks are used, in particular terminological ones. Mass culture is decisively opposed to the culture of the masses, folk, genuine culture, and so on. This is usually preceded by the procedure of reducing the first to low-grade, vulgar products created by clever artisans and swindlers for the needs of the spiritually undeveloped mass. Further, the researcher writes: “It is extremely important to find out what real alternatives lie behind this kind of train of thought. Today, two critical positions dominate - cultural elitism And traditionalism(the latter is often presented as a nationality). It is explicitly or implicitly implied that in the past there was a golden age of cultural prosperity, when "true" creators created exclusively "genuine" cultural values, and "true" connoisseurs "really" assimilated them. The undifferentiated critical attitude to mass culture, its "rejection" by many Western, and after them by some domestic theorists and practitioners, in fact, hides the snobbish criticism of the masses. Of course, the rejection of low-quality products offered by the “market” of culture cannot cause objections, but low quality and mass production are by no means synonymous.” Let's imagine a deliberately low-quality work of art, not distributed by mass media and "consumed" within a small group. Will we classify it as mass culture? The negative answer is obvious.

On the other hand, the masterpieces of world culture can simultaneously or sequentially belong to both dimensions: mass and non-mass. Bach's works did not, of course, originate in the realm of popular culture on their own. However, being recorded on a gramophone record, tape, or used as musical accompaniment in figure skating competitions, they undoubtedly already belong to popular culture. At the same time, which is especially important to emphasize, they do not cease to belong to their brilliant author and in no way can compromise him. The same applies to the oft-mentioned "profaned" Mona Lisa on the packaging of toilet soap and other similar facts.

A common motive for criticism of mass culture is the standardization that inevitably accompanies its "production". Such criticism always explicitly or implicitly proceeds either from the idealization of traditional culture, which supposedly did not know the standard, or from the reduction of the cultural values ​​of the past only to the highest unique classical samples (at the same time, they forget that the "middle" and "lower" floors often simply sunk into Fly). It is appropriate to note that doing this means becoming like a person who would compare, for example, a modern typical residential building built using a mass industrial method with some Florentine palazzo of the 15th century. and vigorously argue the obvious aesthetic defects of the first in comparison with the second, implying that huts simply did not exist in Florence at that time.

Dilemmas like “mass or popular?”, “mass or classical?” unfounded. It is more appropriate and closer to reality to compare mass culture with elite, traditional and specialized culture. But here it is important to be aware of the conditionality and mobility of this distinction. In modern societies, the elitist, traditional and mass elements are intersecting and interpenetrating elements of culture, which often cannot exist without each other.

In the 70-80s. in Western countries, the culture of the middle level (midcult) began to quantitatively predominate. For TV programs, radio broadcasts, magazines of the level of mid-culture, a combination of samples of high culture and popular culture is typical. The sacred story becomes the plot for the musical opera "Jesus Christ Superstar". The film adaptation of Oliver Twist and War and Peace adapts the classics to the “screen” culture, but thereby raises the spiritual world of the viewer above the ordinary level. Midcult makes fashionable samples of truly artistic creativity (for example, the highly intellectual novels of A. Camus or W. Faulkner), creates a fashion for popular science, antiquity, alternative styles of being, etc.

An essential feature of mass culture has become the widespread use of not only entertainment art products, but also popular science. A huge number of popular science magazines are supplemented by constant radio and television programs of an educational nature. Public readings, seminars, sessions, summer camps gather an unprecedentedly large audience and contribute to the familiarization of the broad masses of the population with scientific knowledge. But of course, along with proper scientific, albeit popular knowledge, occult knowledge, as well as various kinds of manipulative psychotechnics, which take root well in popular culture, are gaining considerable popularity.

For mass culture of the 70-80s. characterized by her attempts ethization. The well-known corrupting influence of mass culture: the propaganda of violence, pornography, drugs has become its attribute. Among the theorists of mass culture, who consider it an indispensable attribute of a technological world, calls began to be heard to raise its moral level. The ethization of mass culture is usually associated with the growth of the influence of the humanitarian intelligentsia and the diffusion of religious orientations, although in a "blurred" and unstable search form.

Thus, the spread of mass culture gave rise to scientific research on this phenomenon. In some concepts, mass culture is viewed as a positive phenomenon, reflecting the growth of living standards and education, and, moreover, being a factor in the democratization of public life. However, mass culture is often strongly opposed to the culture of the masses, folk, genuine culture, and so on. Today, two critical positions dominate - cultural elitism and traditionalism. The undifferentiated critical attitude to mass culture, its "rejection" by many Western, and after them by some domestic theorists and practitioners, in fact, hides the snobbish criticism of the masses. Of course, the rejection of low-quality products offered by the “market” of culture cannot cause objections. However, it must be taken into account that dilemmas like “mass or popular?”, “mass or classical?” unfounded. It is more appropriate and closer to reality to compare mass culture with elite, traditional and specialized culture. But here it is important to be aware of the conditionality and mobility of this distinction. In modern societies, the elitist, traditional and mass elements are intersecting and interpenetrating elements of culture, which often cannot exist without each other.

Mass culture is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon characteristic of a mass society, possible due to the high level of development of communication and information systems, a high degree of urbanization and industrialization. And as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon, it cannot be assessed unambiguously.

Conclusion

Mass culture is a term used in modern cultural studies to refer to a specific kind of spiritual production, focused on the "average" consumer and suggesting the possibility of wide replication of the original product. The emergence of mass culture is usually associated with the era of the formation of large-scale industrial production, which required the creation of an army of hired workers for its service. The simultaneous breakup of the traditional social structure of feudal society also contributed to the emergence of a mass of people cut off from the usual forms of activity and the spiritual traditions associated with them. Mass culture arises, on the one hand, as an attempt by new social strata (hired workers and employees) to create their own kind of urban folk culture, on the other hand, as a means of manipulating mass consciousness in the interests of the dominant political and economic structures.

Mass culture seeks to quench the natural human yearning for an ideal with the help of a set of stable worldview clichés that form an implicit code of worldview and a model of behavior.

Mass culture creates modern mythology by constructing its own world, which is often perceived by its consumers as more real than their own everyday existence.

An essential aspect of mass culture is the exact choice of the addressee-consumer (age, social and national groups), which determines the choice of appropriate artistic and technical techniques and, if successful, brings significant income.

Mass culture is traditionally opposed to elite culture, capable of creating products of unique artistic value that require certain intellectual efforts and initial cultural baggage for their perception.

Mass culture serves as a kind of mediator between the generally accepted values ​​of elite culture, the avant-garde "underground" and traditional folk culture. By turning esoteric revelations and marginal artistic experiments into a part of the "naive" consciousness, mass culture contributes to its enrichment and development. At the same time, by fixing the mass mindsets and orientations existing in society, mass culture has a reverse effect on elite cultural creation and largely sets the perspective of the modern interpretation of cultural tradition.

The dynamics of mass culture is able to give a fairly accurate picture of the evolution of social ideals and worldview models, the main trends in the spiritual life of society. Mass culture is a natural product of modern civilization.

List of used literature

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