Media culture

In cultural studies, media culture refers to the current “tepid, the glib, and the senselessly cruel” topics are
Western capitalist society that emerged and developed becoming the norm.[8] Some critics argue that popu-
from the 20th century, under the influence of mass me- lar culture is “dumbing down”: “newspapers that once
dia.[1][2][3] The term alludes to the overall impact and in-
ran foreign news now feature celebrity gossip, pictures
tellectual guidance exerted by the media (primarily TV, of scantily dressed young ladies... television has re-
but also the press, radio and cinema), not only on public placed high-quality drama with gardening, cookery, and
opinion but also on tastes and values. other “lifestyle” programmes [and] reality TV and asinine
The alternative term mass culture conveys the idea soaps,” to the point that people [8] are constantly immersed
that such culture emerges spontaneously from the in trivia about celebrity culture.
masses themselves, like popular art did before the 20th Since the 1950s, television has been the main medium
century.[4] The expression media culture, on the other for molding public opinion.[9] In Rosenberg and White’s
hand, conveys the idea that such culture is the product book Mass Culture, MacDonald argues that “Popular cul-
of the mass media. Another alternative term for media ture is a debased, trivial culture that voids both the deep
culture is “image culture.”[1][2] realities (sex, death, failure, tragedy) and also the sim-
Media culture, with its declinations of advertising and ple spontaneous pleasures... The masses, debauched by
public relations, is often considered as a system cen- several generations of this sort of thing, in turn come [8]
to
[5] demand trivial and comfortable cultural products.” Van
tered on the manipulation of the mass of society.
Corporate media “are used primarily to represent and re- den Haag argues that “all mass media in the end alienate
produce dominant ideologies.”[6] Prominent in the devel- people from personal experience and though appearing to
opment of this perspective has been the word of Theodor offset it, intensify their moral isolation[8][10]
from each other,
[5]
Adorno since the 1940s. Media culture is associated from the reality and from themselves.”
with consumerism, and in this sense called alternatively Critics have lamented the “replacement of high art and
“consumer culture.”[1][3] authentic folk culture by tasteless industrialised artefacts
produced on a mass scale in order to satisfy the lowest
common denominator.”[8] This “mass culture emerged
1 Definitions after the Second World War and have led to the concen-
tration of mass-culture power in ever larger global media
“Popular culture and the mass media have conglomerates.” The popular press decreased the amount
a symbiotic relationship: each depends on the of news or information and replaced it with entertainment
other in an intimate collaboration.” or titillation that reinforces “fears, prejudice, scapegoat-
— K. Turner (1984), p.4[7] ing processes, paranoia, and aggression.”[8]
Critics of television and film have argued that the quality
of TV output has been diluted as stations pursue ratings
The news media mines the work of scientists and scholars by focusing on the “glitzy, the superficial, and the popu-
and conveys it to the general public, often emphasizing el- lar”. In film, “Hollywood culture and values” are increas-
ements that have inherent appeal or the power to amaze. ingly dominating film production in other countries. Hol-
For instance, giant pandas (a species in remote Chinese lywood films have changed from creating formulaic films
woodlands) have become well-known items of popular which emphasize “shock-value and superficial thrill[s]"
culture; parasitic worms, though of greater practical im- and the use of special effects, with themes that focus on
portance, have not. Both scholarly facts and news stories the “basic instincts of aggression, revenge, violence, [and]
get modified through popular transmission, often to the greed.” The plots “often seem simplistic, a standardized
point of outright falsehoods. template taken from the shelf, and dialogue is minimal.”
Hannah Arendt's 1961 essay “The Crisis in Culture” sug- The “characters are shallow and unconvincing, the dia-
gested that a “market-driven media would lead to the dis- logue is also simple, unreal, and badly constructed.”[8]
placement of culture by the dictates of entertainment.”[8]
Susan Sontag argues that in our culture, the most "...intel-
ligible, persuasive values are [increasingly] drawn from
the entertainment industries”, which has spelt the “un-
dermining of standards of seriousness.” As a result,

1
2 5
2 Media culture through religion
Media culture, in its mass marketing, has been com-
pared to the role of religions in the past. It has
been considered as taking the place of the old tradi- [8] “Dumbing down”. Nomuzak.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-
tional religions.[11][12][13] The waves of enthusiasm and
fervent exaltation for a given product, a characteristic [9] Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011) Strategic Public Relations:
consumerist phenomenon, has been equipared to the “ec-
stasies of the convulsions and miracles of the old religious
fetishism”.[14][15]
Conversely, the Catholic Church, the dominant religion [11] from Debord (1977) thesis 20: “The spectacle is the ma-
in the Western world, has been considered retrospectively
as an antecedent and sophisticated form of Public rela-
tions, advertising and Multinational corporation, selling [12] Debord (1967) thesis 25 on the spectacle and the sacred
its product to a mass of worshipers/consumers.[16][17]
3 See also
• The Society of the Spectacle
• Culture industry
• Media studies
• Consumer capitalism
• More popular than Jesus
• Advanced capitalism
• Agenda-setting theory
4 Notes
[1] Jansson (2002)
[2] Thoman (1992)
[3] Thomas (2012) p.30 quotation:
The twenty-first century Western world,
driven by American corporate and consumer
ideology, is a perpetual media culture
that depends on sound bites and the next
thing, leaving the public reduced to media
consumers never allowed time to reflect on
the information. Volume and speed have
consumed and obliterated nuance, ethics,
and accuracy.
[4] Adorno (1963) quotation:
...the interpretation agreeable to its
advocates: that it is a matter of something
like a culture that arises spontaneously from
the masses themselves, the contemporary
form of popular art.
[5] Bignell (2007) pp.21-2
REFERENCES
[6] Nomai (2008) pp.5, 41
[7] Shuker, Roy (1994). Understanding Popular Music, p.4.
ISBN 0-415-10723-7.
25.
Audience Focused Practice p.48
[10] Van den Haag, in Rosenberg and White, Mass Culture, p.
529.
terial reconstruction of the religious illusion.”
[13] Nomai (2008) p.176
[14] Debord (1977) Thesis 67
[15] from Debord (1977) thesis 132: “The masters who make
history their private property, under the protection of
myth, possess first of all a private ownership of the
mode of illusionn: in China and Egypt they long held a
monopoly over the immortality of the soul ... The growth
of their real historical power goes together with a popu-
larization of the possession of myth and illusion.”
[16] Ballardini, Bruno (2006) Gesù lava più bianco. Ovvero
come la chiesa inventò il marketing. Review and excerpts
.
[17] Ballardini, Bruno (2011) 'Gesù e i saldi di fine stagione.
Perché la Chiesa non «vende» più. Review .
5 References
• Adorno (1963) Culture Industry Reconsidered
• Bignell, Jonathan (2007) Postmodern Media Culture
• Debord (1977) [1967] The Society of the Specta-
cle, translation by Fredy Perlman and Jon Supak
(Black & Red, 1970; rev. ed. 1977). Online at
Library.nothingness.org (accessdate=2011-08-20)
• Debord (1994) [1967] The Society of the Specta-
cle, translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith (New
York: Zone Books). Online at Cddc.vt.edu
(accessdate=2011-08-20)
• Jansson, André (2002) The Mediatization of Con-
sumption, Journal of Consumer Culture, March 2002
vol. 2 no. 1 5-31
• Nomai, Afsheen Joseph (2008) Culture Jamming:
Ideological Struggle and the Possibilities for Social
Change. Free pdf download available.
• Thoman, Elizabeth (1992) Rise of the Image Culture,
in Media & Values, Issue# 57
• Thomas, P. L. (2012) Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.
the Corporate Takeover of Public Education
 3

6 Further reading
• Duncan, Barry (1988). Mass Media and Popular
Culture. Toronto, Ont.: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Canada. ISBN 0-7747-1262-7
4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1 Text
• Media culture Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_culture?oldid=669984833 Contributors: Bender235, Bgwhite, Zzuuzz,
Toddst1, Twinsday, SummerWithMorons, Addbot, Tassedethe, Omnipaedista, I dream of horses, IjonTichyIjonTichy, Mogism, Mervat
Salman, Kodamaame, Cherubinirules, Nimatam and Anonymous: 8

7.2 Images
• File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The
Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the file, specifically: “Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).”

7.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0