Mass culture has both positive. Mass culture and its influence on various spheres of society

Positive and negative influence of mass culture on society.

To begin with, I would like to expand on the very concept of mass culture.

“Mass culture” (English: mass culture), in philosophy and sociology, a concept that generally expresses the state of bourgeois culture since the mid-20th century. This concept characterizes the features of production cultural values in modern industrial society and mass consumption, i.e. subordination to it as one’s goal (mass production of culture is understood by analogy with the conveyor belt industry).

In my opinion, mass culture has a number of characteristics that influence people: entertainment, funnyness, sentimentality of comic books, popular book and magazine publications; focus on the subconscious, instincts - thirst for possession, sense of ownership, national and racial prejudices, cult of success, cult strong personality; POSITIVE INFLUENCE

The most important, if not defining, feature “ mass society” is “mass culture”.

Responding to the general spirit of the times, it, unlike the social practice of all previous eras, from about the middle of our century has become one of the most profitable sectors of the economy and even receives appropriate names: “entertainment industry”, “commercial culture”, “pop culture”, “ leisure industry”, etc. By the way, the last of the given designations reveals another reason for the emergence of “mass culture” - the emergence of an excess of free time and “leisure” among a significant layer of working citizens. People increasingly have a need to “kill time.” “Mass culture” is designed to satisfy it, naturally for money, which manifests itself primarily in the sensory sphere, i.e. in all types of literature and art. Particularly important channels for the general democratization of culture over the past decades have become cinema, television and, of course, sports (in its purely spectator part), gathering huge and not too discriminating audiences, driven only by the desire for psychological relaxation.

To fulfill its function - to relieve severe work stress - “mass culture” must be at least entertaining; addressed to people often with insufficiently developed intellectual principles, it largely exploits such areas of the human psyche as the subconscious and instincts. All this corresponds to the prevailing theme of “mass culture”, which receives large profits from the exploitation of such “interesting” topics that are understandable to all people as love, family, career, crime and violence, adventure, horror, etc. It is curious and psychotherapeutically positive that, in general, “mass culture” is life-loving, shuns truly unpleasant or depressing plots for the audience, and the corresponding works usually end with a happy ending. It is not surprising that, along with the “average” person, one of the consumers of such products is the pragmatically minded part of young people, not burdened by life experience, who have not lost optimism and still think little about the fundamental problems of human existence.

Popular culture is able today to play and positive role, introducing the masses to the most complex spiritual and moral problems in an adapted form. But whether an individual will abandon further searches for cultural musical values, or will be content with the acquired surrogates of mass culture - this directly depends on the individual himself. An exceptional role here belongs to education, artistic and aesthetic education.

NEGATIVE INFLUENCE

Mass culture, especially with its strong commercialization, can displace both high and folk cultures.

Many Russians, and again, primarily young people, are characterized by a lack of ethnocultural or national self-identification; they cease to perceive themselves as Russians and lose their Russianness. The socialization of youth occurs either on the traditional Soviet or on the Western model of education, in any case, non-national. Russian folk culture(traditions, customs, rituals) is perceived by most young people as an anachronism. The lack of national self-identification among Russian youth precisely leads to the easier penetration of Westernized values into the youth environment.

In many ways youth subculture it simply repeats and duplicates the television subculture. It should be noted here that since the early 1990s. mass culture in its screen and television forms is becoming increasingly negative. For example, of the 100 films most popular in Leningrad video salons, 52% had all the features of action films, 14 horror films, 18 karate films. At the same time, according to film experts, there was not a single film that was distinguished by artistic and aesthetic value, and only 5% had certain artistic merits. The repertoire of cinemas consists of 80-90% foreign films.

No less negative consequences can be noted in the development of musical culture. Such a type of mass culture as rock music was first banned at the official level in our country, and then just as immoderately exalted and idealized. Why speak out against the rock music that is associated with folk traditions, traditions of political and art song? There are also such trends as punk rock, heavy metal and others, which undoubtedly have a countercultural, vandalistic character. Many musical styles They are distinguished by syndromes of pessimism, motives of death, suicide, fear and alienation. The loss of humanistic content occurs in rock music due to the distortion of the natural human voice all sorts of wheezing and squeals, deliberately broken by mocking intonations, replacing male voices with effeminate ones, and vice versa.

CONCLUSION

Attitudes towards mass culture are most often ambiguous: they arrogantly despise it, express concern about its onslaught, and in the milder version treat it condescendingly, but no one has yet avoided contact with it.

From the above, we can conclude what, mass culture- this is the culture of the masses; culture intended for public consumption; 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 and claims to be folk art.

"The influence of mass culture on public consciousness"

1. Introduction………………………………………………………3

2. Definition of “mass culture”.................................................. ........5

3. Features and functions

mass culture in modern society………………………13

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………….24

Introduction

Culture is a spiritual component human activity, providing various aspects of human life. This means that culture is omnipresent, but at the same time, in each specific type of activity it represents only its own spiritual side - in all the variety of socially significant manifestations.

At the same time, culture is also a process and a result of spiritual production, which makes it an essential part of total social production and social regulation, along with economics, politics and social structure. Spiritual production and ensures the formation, maintenance, dissemination and implementation cultural norms, values, meanings and knowledge embodied in various components of culture (myths, religion, artistic culture, ideology, science, etc.). As an important component of total production, culture is not reduced to non-productive consumption or service. It is an indispensable prerequisite for any effective production.

Culture reveals its content through a system of norms, values, meanings, ideas and knowledge, which are expressed in the system of morality and law, religion, art and science.

Culture is not a static phenomenon; it is constantly changing. In the 20th century there was active talk about mass culture. Each era creates its own type, its own example of a person and attitude towards him. Mass society shapes both in its own way.

There are many various points perspective on the emergence of mass culture. There is also no unity in the assessment of mass culture. Viewpoints on popular culture are often opposite to each other.

In the work you can consider different views on popular culture and various theories related to it. For this we used books by the following authors: Ortega y Gasset H. “Aesthetics. Philosophy of Culture"; Moscovici S. “The Age of Crowds”; Akopyan K.Z. “Mass culture” and the works of other authors.

The purpose of the work is to determine the role and functions of mass culture in life modern society.

Objectives: to consider what mass culture is, its origin and forms; consider the functions of mass culture.

Definition of "mass culture"

Many sciences, history, archeology, sociology, ethnography, art history and cultural studies, study culture. There are several dozen different definitions of what can be called culture, many approaches to its study, theoretical concepts, models of culture.

In the history of philosophical understanding of culture, the main models of culture can be identified. The naturalistic model reduced culture to the objective and material forms of its manifestation and saw in culture the human continuation of nature. Representatives of this view were Voltaire, Rousseau, and Holbach.

This approach turns culture into one of the links in natural evolution, embodying the development of the abilities of a “natural person.” It is thanks to culture that man is not excluded from nature, but forms the highest link in its development, substantiates ideals reasonable person from his natural needs.

German educators associated the concept of “culture” with the personal development of a person, while they identified “civilization” with the socio-political life of people.

However, culture is not only the living activity of a person and its objective embodiment, but also the relationship between people as its creators. Culture is a complex social organism that is born, lives and dies, giving way to new cultural phenomena. In the 20th century, people began to talk about a new type of culture – mass culture.

Features of the production and consumption of cultural values have allowed culturologists to identify two social forms of cultural existence: mass culture and elite culture. Mass culture is a type of cultural product that is produced in large volumes every day. It is assumed that mass culture is consumed by all people, regardless of place and country of residence. This is culture Everyday life, presented to the widest audience through various channels, including media and communications.

There are a number of points of view regarding the origins of mass culture in cultural studies. As an example, we can cite the most frequently found in the scientific literature:

1. The prerequisites for mass culture have been formed since the birth of humanity, and, in any case, at the dawn of Christian civilization. As an example, simplified versions of the Holy Books (for example, the “Bible for the Beggars”), designed for a mass audience, are usually given.

2. The origins of mass culture are associated with the appearance in European literature XVII-XVIII centuries of adventure, detective, adventure novel, which significantly expanded the readership due to huge circulations (books by D. Defoe, M. Komarov).

3. Big influence The development of mass culture was also influenced by the law on compulsory universal literacy adopted in Great Britain in 1870, which allowed many to master main view artistic creativity of the 19th century - a novel.

And yet, this is the prehistory of mass culture. And in the proper sense, mass culture manifested itself for the first time in the United States at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. For turn of XIX-XX centuries, a comprehensive massification of life has become characteristic. It affected all its spheres: economics and politics, management and communication between people.

On the one hand, the emergence of mass culture democratized the sphere of culture, on the other hand, it contributed to the penetration of commercial and political interests and the pursuit of profit into this sphere.

There are many interpretations of the concept of “mass”:

1. Mass - as a monolithic, indivisible set (that is, the opposite of the concept of class).

2. Mass - as a synonym for ignorance (as X. Ortega y Gasset wrote about it).

3. The masses - as a mechanized society (i.e., a person is perceived as an appendage of technology).

4. The mass - as a bureaucratized society (that is, in a mass society the individual loses his individuality in favor of the herd).

5. Mass - like a crowd. There is a psychological meaning here. The crowd does not reason, but obeys passions. A person by himself can be cultured, but in a crowd he is a barbarian (this point of view is reflected in S. Moscovici).

In general, these points of view agree that the masses are the embodiment of herdism, unification, and stereotypes. That it is difficult to identify an individual among the masses, that culture is often unusual for the masses, that “the mass person has not acquired culture.”

In general, “mass” society is interpreted as a new social structure emerging as a result of objective processes of human development - industrialization, urbanization, the rapid growth of mass consumption, the complication of the bureaucratic system and, of course, the unprecedented development of mass communications. Under these conditions, a person “from the street,” losing his individuality, turns into a faceless extra in history, dissolving into the crowd, which no longer listens to genuine authorities, but easily becomes a victim of demagogues and even criminals devoid of any ideals.

Despite its apparent vacuity, mass culture has a very clear ideological program, which is based on certain philosophical foundations. There are many studies and concepts regarding popular culture.

One of the oldest philosophical schools of past centuries was the Greek school - the Cyrenaics, founded in the 5th century BC. friend of Socrates - Aristipus. This school created the ethical doctrine - hedonism. Hedonists argue that the feeling of pleasure is the goal of all human behavior. The ideas of hedonism were developed by the Epicureans. The presence of such ancient ideological sources in mass culture is an argument against those theories that claim that only one technical means allegedly gave rise to new type"global culture". But, of course, the ideological foundations of the phenomenon of mass culture begin to take shape most intensively from the moment the bourgeoisie ascends to the historical arena. It is from this moment that the entertainment branch of the hedonistic function of artistic culture becomes one of the defining ones in mass culture.

The ideological basis of modern mass culture is the philosophy of positivism. Positivism in popular culture manifested itself as naturalism. It is characterized by the reduction of the social to the biological. An example is a series of Western detective novels. In the plots of these works, behind the crimes committed there is one social motive - money. But in the endings of the novels it turns out that the crimes were organized by maniacs, schizophrenic criminals who are unable to answer for their actions. A serious social motive turns out to be replaced by a biological motive. The dependence of sociology on biology has become a worldview platform for many works mass art. The principle of escapism, that is, the desire to take the consumer away from the contradictions of the real world by any means, to declare them non-existent or to force them to be forgotten, has firmly taken over leading place in similar works.

The philosophy of positivism was the main form of ideological justification for the naturalistic artistic method in art (G. Spencer, E. Renan, I. Ton). Naturalism as a method of artistic creativity took shape in the second half of the 19th century in Europe. In naturalistic works of art, the role of the material environment is exaggerated and the role of social factors in the formation of personality is underestimated. Naturalistic schools led, first of all, to a description of life in works of art, to focus on the physical details of human life, but less attention was paid to the social foundations of existence.

In his theory of the unconscious 3. Freud proceeded from the fact that the essence of man is expressed in freedom from instincts. Hence, life in society is possible only when these instincts are suppressed. What Freud called “frustration” arises - that is, the individual’s unconscious hatred of society, which is expressed in aggressiveness. But since society has capabilities strong enough to suppress this aggressiveness of individuals, a person finds a way out for his unsatisfied passions in art. The main influence of Freudianism on popular culture lies in the use of its natural instincts (aggression, fear, etc.).

A very famous concept of mass culture was proposed by José Ortega y Gasset. Ortega, as a philosopher, created his own doctrine of “rationalism,” the essence of which is not the separate existence of philosophy and life, science and art, but their mutual influence. As a cultural theorist, Ortega became not only one of the main creators of the theory of mass society, but also a prominent theorist of mass art and creative “modernism.”

José Ortega y Gasset was born into the family of a famous journalist and member of the Spanish Parliament, graduated from a Jesuit college and the Metropolitan University (1904), studied in Germany and from 1910 for a quarter of a century headed the department of metaphysics at the Faculty of Philosophy and Language of the University of Madrid, while simultaneously studying publishing and political activity in the ranks of the anti-monarchist and later anti-fascist intelligentsia.

In his work “The Revolt of the Masses,” Ortega develops the idea that modern society and its culture are affected by a serious illness - the dominance of a spiritually unspiritual man-in-the-street, devoid of any aspirations, imposing his lifestyle on entire states.

According to Ortega, the impersonal “mass” - a bunch of mediocrities - instead of following the recommendations of the natural “elite” minority, rises up against it, displaces the “elite” from its traditional areas - politics and culture, which ultimately leads to everyone social ills of our century. “If a minority consists of individuals who have certain characteristics, then the mass is a set of individuals who do not differ in anything special.”

Being incapable of critical thinking, the mass person thoughtlessly assimilates any random attitudes and norms, everything that has accumulated in him by chance, and imposes it everywhere. Ortega says that humanity can be divided into two classes: those who demand a lot from themselves and shoulder burdens and obligations on themselves, and those who do not demand anything and for whom living is to go with the flow. The Spanish philosopher connects his reasoning about the emergence of mass man, first of all, with European history. In his opinion, the glory and responsibility for the entry of the broad masses into the historical field lies with the 19th century. For all twelve centuries of its existence - from the 7th to the 19th centuries - the population of Europe never exceeded 180 million people, and during the period from 1800 to 1914, it reached 460 million. According to Ortega, these masses do not have time to become saturated with traditional culture. It is the absence traditional culture in modern society leads to its spiritual degradation and decline in morality. Ultimately, Ortega sought to show that it was not class contradictions or the machinations of imperialism, but precisely the inhumane attitudes imposed on millions of people in totalitarian societies that became the cause of all the tragedies of the past century.

Ortega’s thoughts largely echo the ideas of philosophers and sociologists of the so-called Frankfurt School, the “new left,” or neo-Marxists, who believed that it is the extreme technologization and bureaucratization of modern society that leads it to dead ends of unspiritual authoritarianism and dictatorships. Representatives of this school believed that “people should have true needs - to be creative, independent, autonomous, to live freely and think for themselves. But in modern capitalist society these true needs cannot be satisfied, since they are constantly superimposed by false needs necessary for the survival of the system.”

The phenomenon of “mass culture” described above, from the point of view of its role in the development of modern civilization, is assessed by scientists far from unambiguously. Depending on their inclination towards an elitist or populist way of thinking, cultural scientists tend to consider it or something like social pathology, a symptom of the degeneration of society, or, conversely, important factor his health and internal stability.

A critical approach to mass culture boils down to its accusations of neglecting the classical heritage, of allegedly being an instrument of conscious manipulation of people; enslaves and unifies the main creator of any culture - the sovereign personality, contributes to its alienation from real life

The opposite approach, on the contrary, is expressed in the fact that mass culture is proclaimed as a natural consequence of the irreversible scientific and technological progress that it promotes the unity of people, especially young people, regardless of any ideologies and national-ethnic differences into a sustainable social system and not only does not reject cultural heritage of the past, but also makes its best examples available to the widest strata of the people by replicating them through print, radio, television and industrial reproduction.

There is no consensus on the issue of mass culture. One way or another, mass culture has become an integral part of our lives and we need not to fight it, but to use it for our own benefit.

Features and functions of mass culture in modern society.

The origins of the wide spread of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all social relations. The desire to see a product in the field of spiritual activity in combination with powerful development funds mass communication and led to the creation of a new phenomenon - mass culture. IN socially mass culture forms a new social stratum, called " middle class" This “middle class” became the core of life in industrial society, and it is also what 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 industrial and post-industrial people. industrial society, how much stimulation of consumer consciousness in the recipient (i.e., viewer, listener, reader), which in turn forms a special type - passive, uncritical perception of this culture in a person. 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. Shaped by popular culture mass consciousness diverse in its manifestation. However, it is distinguished by its conservatism, inertia, and limitations. It cannot cover all processes in development, in all the complexity of their interaction. In the practice of mass culture, mass consciousness has specific means of expression. Popular culture in to a greater extent focuses not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes. In popular culture, the formula (and this is the essence of artificially created image- image or stereotype) - this is the main thing. This situation encourages idolatry. Today, the newfangled “stars of artificial Olympus” have no less fanatical fans than the old gods and goddesses.

Mass culture in artistic creativity performs specific social functions. Among them, the main one is illusory-compensatory: introducing a person to the world of the dominant way of life, open or hidden by propaganda, which has as its ultimate goal the distraction of the masses from social activity, the adaptation of people to existing conditions, conformism.

Hence the use in popular culture of such genres of art as detective, western, melodrama, musical, comic book. It is within these genres that simplified versions of life are created that reduce social evil to psychological and moral factors.

In America, popular culture has acquired a dual character: the American mind, which is not occupied with practical concerns, remains at rest, while the other part of it, occupied with discovery, production and social organization, resembles Niagara Falls. The American will is embodied in the skyscraper, the American intellect is embodied in colonial buildings.

From market-oriented consumer goods, we learn about the typical behaviors, attitudes, generally accepted opinions, prejudices and expectations of a large number of people.

When considering popular culture, we inevitably come across the concept of “manipulation”. The word "manipulation" has its root Latin word manus- hand ( manipulus- handful, handful, from manus And ple- fill). In the dictionaries of European languages, the word is interpreted as handling objects with certain intentions and purposes (for example, manual control, examination of a patient by a doctor using hands, etc.). This means that such actions require dexterity and dexterity. This is where the modern figurative meaning of the word comes from - clever handling of people as objects, things.

S. Kara-Murza identifies three main signs of manipulation.

Firstly, this is a type of spiritual, psychological influence (and not physical violence or the threat of violence). The target of the manipulator’s actions is the spirit, the mental structures of the human personality.

Secondly, manipulation is a hidden influence, the fact of which should not be noticed by the object of manipulation. When an attempt at manipulation is discovered and the revelation becomes widely known, the action is usually curtailed because revealed fact such an attempt causes significant damage to the manipulator. The main goal is hidden even more carefully - so that even the exposure of the very fact of an attempt at manipulation does not lead to the clarification of long-term intentions.

Thirdly, manipulation is an influence that requires significant skill and knowledge.

Manipulation is a method of domination through spiritual impact on people through programming their behavior. This influence is aimed at the mental structures of a person, is carried out secretly and aims to change the opinions, motives and goals of people in the direction desired by the authorities. It is in the conditions of mass culture that it is easiest to manipulate people.

The nature of manipulation consists in the presence of a double impact - along with the openly sent message, the manipulator sends a coded signal to the addressee, hoping that this signal will awaken in the recipient’s mind those images that the manipulator needs. The art of manipulation is to set the imagination process in the right direction , but in such a way that a person does not notice the hidden impact.

One of the important functions of modern mass culture is the mythologization of public consciousness. Works of mass culture, just like myths, are not based on the distinction between the real and the ideal. They become the subject not of knowledge, but of faith.

There is an opinion that the most adequate term expressing the essence of works of mass culture is the term icon. It is the icon that corresponds to the Russian concept of image. This term characterizes this type of artistic reflection, which is symbolic, fundamentally unrealistic in nature, is an object of faith and worship, and not a means of reflecting and understanding the world.

Since in the conditions of mass culture the individual cannot always express himself and is often suppressed, we can talk about public opinion. In the “Workbook of a Sociologist”, public opinion was considered as “the attitude of the population towards a particular phenomenon, object or situation.”

Public opinion does not exist in every society, since it is not simply the sum of those private opinions that people exchange in a narrow, private circle of family or friends. Public opinion is a state of public consciousness that is expressed publicly and influences the functioning of society.

The functioning of public opinion as a social institution means that it acts as a kind of “social power”, i.e. “power endowed with will and capable of subordinating the behavior of subjects of social interaction.”

Public opinion in its modern meaning and understanding appeared with the development of the bourgeois system and the formation of civil society as a sphere of life independent of political power. In the Middle Ages, a person’s belonging to one class or another had direct political significance and strictly determined his social position. With the emergence of bourgeois society, the estates were replaced by open classes consisting of formally free and independent individuals. This was a prerequisite for the formation of influential public opinion.

However, public opinion is not always an absolute force expressing the interests of people. The fact is that in a developed democracy, with a stable socio-political situation, the role and importance of public opinion is clearly limited and balanced by a strong and authoritative representative government, its impact on government activities carried out not directly, but indirectly, through forms of representative democracy. In addition, public opinion can be effectively managed. In the conditions of mass culture and standardization, this is easily achieved by competent specialists using various technologies of influence.

Not many members of society can resist the phenomena mass influence manifested in advertising and campaigning. The factors and limits of such belief require careful analysis. In particular, this refers to the idea of the omnipotence of mass communicative influence on a mass audience, on a “mass” person, which frightens some and encourages others (depending on the position).

French researcher Serge Moscovici discusses public opinion and behavior. He says that: “In civilizations where crowds play a leading role, man loses the meaning of existence as well as the sense of “I.” The individual is dead, long live the masses! This is the harsh fact that the observer of modern society discovers for himself.”

Serge Moscovici draws attention to group actions, which are not limited to the behavior of individual participants. At the same time, in the masses he sees not only an obedient herd, but also a crowd ready to break loose at any time. Moral prohibitions are swept away by such a crowd along with submission to reason. It turns out that the crowd, or mass, is monolithic and if you know how to control it, then you can lead it with you anywhere. Individual opinions of the mass participants can be ignored.

Psychologists such as S. Freud and Le Bon also speak about this feature of the masses. Mass psychology views the individual as a member of a tribe, people, caste, estate, or as component human crowd, in known time and for a specific purpose organized into a mass. The phenomena revealed in these special conditions- the expression of a special, deeper unfounded primary urge, which does not manifest itself in other situations. An individual, under a certain condition, feels, thinks and acts completely differently than could be expected from him when included in a human crowd that has acquired the property of a psychological mass.

The strangest thing about a psychological mass is this: whatever the kind of individuals that make it up, no matter how similar or dissimilar their lifestyle, occupations, their characters and degree of intelligence, but when they turn into a mass they acquire a collective soul, due to which they are completely different. feel, think and act than each of them individually felt, thought and acted. “There are ideas and feelings that are manifested or transformed into action only in individuals united in masses. The psychological mass is... a new being with qualities completely different from those of individual cells.”

In the mass, the individual achievements of individuals are erased and their originality disappears; the racial unconscious comes to the fore, the psychic superstructure, developed differently in individual people, is demolished and the unconscious, the same for everyone, is brought into action.

Freud identifies qualities in mass individuals that they did not possess, and the reasons for this, in his opinion, are in the following three main points.

The first of the reasons is that in a mass, by virtue of the mere fact of his multitude, the individual experiences a feeling of irresistible power, allowing him to indulge in primal urges that, if he were alone, he would be forced to curb. There is less reason to curb them, since with the anonymity, and thus the irresponsibility of the masses, the sense of responsibility, which always restrains the individual, completely disappears.

The second reason - infectiousness - also contributes to the manifestation of special signs among the masses and the determination of their direction. Contagiousness is an easily ascertainable but inexplicable phenomenon that should be classified as a hypnotic phenomenon... In a crowd, every action, every feeling is contagious, and to such a strong degree that the individual very easily sacrifices his personal interest in favor of the general interest. This is a property completely opposite to his nature, which a person is capable of only as part of an integral part of the mass.

The third, and moreover the most important reason, determines in individuals united in a mass special qualities, completely opposite to the qualities of an isolated individual. By them, Freud understands suggestibility, and the mentioned infectiousness is only its consequence. An individual who spends some time in the active mass falls into a special state, very close to the “enchantment” that takes over the hypnotized person under the influence of the hypnotist. The conscious personality is completely lost, the will and the ability to discriminate are absent, all feelings and thoughts are oriented in the direction indicated by the hypnotist.

Le Bon's point of view is similar to Freud's. “In addition, by the mere fact of belonging to the organized masses, a person descends several steps lower on the ladder of civilization. Being an individual, he was perhaps an educated individual, but in the mass he is a barbarian, i.e. a creature driven by primal urges. He has the spontaneity, impetuosity, wildness, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive creatures."

The masses are impulsive, changeable and excitable. It is almost exclusively driven by the unconscious. The impulses that the mass obeys may, depending on the circumstances, be noble or cruel, heroic or cowardly, but in all cases they are so imperative that they do not allow the manifestation of not only personal instinct, but even the instinct of self-preservation. Nothing about her is intentional. If she passionately desires something, it is always for a short time; she is incapable of constancy of will. She cannot stand the delay between desire and the implementation of what she wants. She feels omnipotent; the concept of the impossible disappears among the individual in the mass.

The masses are gullible and extremely easy to influence; for them there is nothing implausible. She thinks in images that generate each other associatively, not verified by reason for compliance with reality. The masses, therefore, know neither doubt nor uncertainty.

The mass immediately goes to extremes, the expressed suspicion immediately turns into unshakable confidence, the grain of antipathy into wild hatred. The danger of contradicting the masses is absolutely obvious. You can protect yourself by following the example of those around you. Therefore, it is not so surprising if we observe a person in the crowd performing or welcoming actions that he would turn away from in his usual conditions.

The base instincts present in man are exploited by modern mass culture. The 20th century will go down in human history as the century of fear. Destructive wars, revolutions, disasters, natural disasters contributed to the appearance in world artistic culture of the image “ little man", who overcomes all the troubles that the outside world throws at him. The ancient Greeks created in art the image of a hero who organically existed with the world around him, artistic creativity The 20th century widely exploits the image of a little man as a hero of our time.

Modern cinema has been particularly successful in realizing the instinct of fear, producing a huge number So horror films, disaster films, thrillers. Their main subjects are: natural disasters(earthquakes, tsunamis, Bermuda triangle with its unsolved mysteries); just disasters (shipwrecks, plane crashes, fires); monsters (these include giant gorillas, aggressive sharks, creepy spiders, man-eating crocodiles, etc.); supernatural forces (we are talking about devils, antichrists, spirits, phenomena of transmigration of the soul, telekinesis); aliens.

Disasters resonate in people’s souls because we all live in an unstable world, where real disasters occur every day and everywhere. In conditions of economic and environmental crisis, local wars, and national clashes, there are no guarantees against life disasters. So, gradually the theme of “catastrophe”, “fear”, sometimes not even always consciously, takes possession of people.

In the last decades of the 20th century, they increasingly began to be used as a reason for depicting a disaster on film and television screens. tragic events political life: Acts of brutal terrorism and kidnapping. Moreover, in the presentation and promotion of this material, what is most important is sensationalism, cruelty, and adventurism. And as a result, the human psyche, trained by disaster films, masterfully aestheticized by the commercial screen, gradually becomes insensitive to what is happening in real life. And instead of warning humanity against the possible destruction of civilization, similar works popular culture simply prepares us for this prospect.

The problem of realizing the instincts of cruelty and aggressiveness in works of art of mass culture is not new. Plato and Aristotle argued about whether a cruel artistic spectacle generates cruelty in the viewer, listener or reader. Plato considered the depiction of bloody tragedies a socially dangerous phenomenon. Aristotle, on the contrary, expected from the depiction of scenes of horror and violence the purification of recipients by catharsis, that is, he wanted to see a certain mental release that the recipient experiences in the process of empathy. For many years, the depiction of violence in art was characteristic of the margins of popular culture. Nowadays, the “super violence” that permeates books, plays, and films has come to the fore. Mass culture constantly throws out to the public more and more vicious and violent films, records, books. Addiction to fictional violence is similar to drug addiction.

Today, people have different attitudes towards violence in artistic culture. Some believe that the topic of violence does not bring anything terrible into real life. Others believe that depictions of violence in fiction contribute to more violence in real life. Of course, it would be a simplification to see a direct connection between works that promote violence and the rise in crime. However, in a society of mass consumption of films, television programs, records - all this is part of real life. Art culture always has a huge impact on a person, causing certain feelings.

Another reason for the emergence of mass culture is the emergence among a significant layer of working citizens of excess free time and leisure, due to the high level of mechanization of the production process. People increasingly have a need to “kill time.” “Mass culture” is designed to satisfy it, naturally for money, and it manifests itself primarily in the sensory sphere, i.e. in all types of literature and art. Particularly important channels for the general democratization of culture over the past decades have been cinema, television and, of course, sports (in its purely spectator part), gathering huge and not too discriminating audiences, driven only by the desire for psychological relaxation. This leads to another function of mass culture in modern society – relieving stress and helping to spend free time.

Mass culture cannot be viewed only from a negative perspective; in modern society it also performs some positive functions. True positive influence on modern culture it provides very little, increasingly satisfying lowered tastes.

Conclusion

The meaning of the existence of each era lies in the formation of a certain type of personality. And the tool for accomplishing this task is culture in all its diversity. The formation of personality occurs depending on the tasks that a given people faces in a specific historical period. Law, art, education and other spheres of culture strive to cultivate in a person such qualities that would allow him to create the necessary conditions for the preservation and development of their own people and their culture. Only a person who had the ability to solve the problem of increasing and preserving the spiritual wealth of the people could certain qualities. And every historical era made specific demands on her contemporaries.

Activity in learning about the world, love for one’s fatherland, and the desire for physical and spiritual perfection were characteristic of the people of the ancient world. Deep religiosity combined with a strictly defined hierarchy of cultural values found expressed in social structure societies were characteristic of medieval Western European society. In it, the problems of forming a deeply religious personality, who does not doubt the tenets of faith and is ready to defend them, regardless of anything, came to the fore. During the Renaissance, it was discovered that man contains not only a spiritual, but also a sensual principle.

Bourgeois society, which requires a certain level of education from its members, seems to create conditions for the accessibility of culture and the possibility of cultural creativity for everyone. In bourgeois society, the world of culture is viewed by the individual through the prism of utilitarian needs, which are determined by his social role. The person here is not a creator, but only exploits creative activity, subordinating it to his own interests. And what he can actually create is directed precisely against culture, serving its alienation and destruction.

In a consumer society creative personalities act as labor power, and products act as consumer value. Therefore, an artist from the sphere of “mass culture” is evaluated primarily by productivity, by distribution, by audience reaction, and, above all, by profit and loss indicators. The main feature of “mass culture” is a market mentality that treats art, science, religion, and politics as consumer goods subordinated to profit considerations rather than to the internal logic of content.

Focus on material values, following the average taste - all this does not contribute to cultural development society.

Literature.

Akopyan K.Z. Mass culture. – M.: Alfa-M, 2004.

Andreeva G.M. Social Psychology. - M.: Nauka, 1994.

Bart R. Mythologies. – M., 1988.

Grinder J.; Bandler R. Formation of trance. – M., 1994.

Kara-Murza S. Manipulation of consciousness. - M.: "Algorithm", 2000.

Konetskaya V. P. Sociology of communication. - M., 1997.

Le Bon G. “Crowd creation” // New time. - No. 3, 1994.

Moscovici S. Century of Crowds. – M., 1996.

Ortega y Gasset H. Aesthetics. Philosophy of culture. – M., 1991.

A sociologist's workbook. - M., 1983.

Safarov R.A. Sociological research. – M., 1979.

Snow C. P. Two cultures. – M., 1973.

Freud Z. Psychology of the masses and analysis of the human “I”. – Minsk, 1991.

Chumikov A. N. Public relations. – M., 2001.

Moscovici S. Century of Crowds. – M., 1996.

Akopyan K.Z. Mass culture. – M.: Alfa-M, 2004. – P. 27.

Freud Z. Psychology of the masses and analysis of the human “I”. – Minsk, 1991

Ortega y Gasset H. Aesthetics. Philosophy of culture. – M., 1991

Akopyan K.Z. Mass culture. – M.: Alfa-M, 2004. – P. 26.

Akopyan K.Z. Mass culture. – M.: Alfa-M, 2004. – P. 36.

Kara-Murza S. Manipulation of consciousness. - M.: "Algorithm", 2000

A sociologist's workbook. - M., 1983. - P. 100

Safarov R.A. Sociological research. – M., 1979. - P. 14

Moscovici S. Century of Crowds. – M., 1996. – P. 56

Freud Z. Psychology of the masses and analysis of the human “I”. – Minsk, 1991. – P. 423

Le Bon G. “Crowd creation” // New time. - No. 3, 1994. P. 63

1. Positive aspects
First, popular culture is “democratic” because it appeals to all people without distinction of nation, class, level of poverty or wealth.
Secondly, mass culture seems to compensate for the emotional deficit that is increasingly present in our lives, because it (mass culture) is of an entertaining nature. Every person has the right after a difficult work week, come, for example, to the same cinema, and have a lot of fun, laugh at some American comedy that does not have much meaning and belongs in all respects to mass culture. People have every right not only to “work with their brains”, but also to simply have fun.
And thirdly, thanks to modern means of mass communication, many works of art with high artistic value. So on television we have the opportunity to watch films that were made in the last century, some kind of performance or concert... On the Internet we can find a lot of really interesting and useful things - a book or a reproduction of a painting famous artist.
We can also add that, thanks to mass culture, today the elite is becoming accessible. You don’t have to go to the theater, but go on the Internet and find the necessary music or production, information. Previously, the majority of the population did not have such an opportunity. And no matter how you look at it, the elite remains. And it is she who directs mass culture in the right direction, promotes what is profitable.

2. Negative aspects.
On the other hand, mass culture is aimed at producing " mass man", borrowing his thoughts from radio and television programs, advertising, and glossy magazines. By borrowing thoughts and patterns of behavior, a person becomes a simple performer of given roles with an atrophied personality, i.e. the person becomes depersonalized.
People don’t want to think, they don’t want to not only write something of their own, but also just read. A person no longer expresses himself in anything, but only consumes what is ready. Mass culture is aimed at simplifying society. Everything is simpler and simpler, more and more monotonous. Under the influence of mass culture, not only individual people are depersonalized, but also the relationships between them. People are increasingly communicating over the Internet, writing letters over the Internet, getting married over the Internet without leaving home, ordering groceries, and so on. But it is very important for people to look into each other’s eyes when talking in order to understand what each of them is. Now, unfortunately, this is disappearing.
Mass culture products impose certain norms and values, while actively influencing human psychology. It is as if a person becomes a “captive” of this culture, and no one tries to get out of this captivity. Mass culture, and in particular, TV series, talk shows, and various Internet sites take up too much free time modern man, they just brazenly “steal” it!
But, if you think about it, there would be no mass culture without the masses themselves. Nowadays, people are truly dependent on mass culture. They themselves can’t imagine their life without her.
“Mass culture” turns people into gray, faceless masses and instills in us simplified patterns and stereotypes of behavior..

Features and functions of mass culture in modern society

The origins of the wide spread of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all social relations. The desire to see a product in the sphere of spiritual activity, combined with the powerful development of mass media, led to the creation of a new phenomenon - mass culture. Socially, mass culture forms a new social stratum, called the “middle class”. This “middle class” became the core of life in industrial society, and it is also what made mass culture so popular.

Thanks to mass culture, 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 (i.e., 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. The mass consciousness formed by mass culture is diverse in its manifestation. However, it is distinguished by its conservatism, inertia, and limitations. It cannot cover all processes in development, in all the complexity of their interaction. In the practice of mass culture, mass consciousness has specific means of expression. Mass culture is more focused not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes. In mass culture, the formula (and this is the essence of an artificially created image - an image or a stereotype) is the main thing. This situation encourages idolatry. Today, the newfangled “stars of artificial Olympus” have no less fanatical fans than the old gods and goddesses.

Mass culture in artistic creativity performs specific social functions. Among them, the main one is illusory-compensatory: introducing a person to the world of the dominant way of life, open or hidden by propaganda, which has as its ultimate goal the distraction of the masses from social activity, people's adaptation to existing conditions, conformism.

In America, popular culture has acquired a dual character: the American mind, which is not occupied with practical concerns, remains at rest, while the other part of it, occupied with discoveries, production and social organization, reminiscent of Niagara Falls. The American will is embodied in the skyscraper, the American intellect is embodied in colonial buildings.

From market-oriented consumer goods we learn about typical behaviours, attitudes, conventional wisdom, prejudices and expectations large quantity of people.

When considering popular culture, we inevitably come across the concept of “manipulation”. The word “manipulation” has its root in the Latin word manus - hand (manipulus - handful, handful, from manus and ple - to fill). In the dictionaries of European languages, the word is interpreted as handling objects with certain intentions and purposes (for example, manual control, examination of a patient by a doctor using hands, etc.). This means that such actions require dexterity and dexterity. This is where the modern figurative meaning of the word comes from - clever handling of people as objects, things.

S. Kara-Murza identifies three main signs of manipulation:

Secondly, manipulation is a hidden influence, the fact of which should not be noticed by the object of manipulation. When an attempt at manipulation is discovered and the exposure becomes widely known, the action is usually curtailed, since the disclosed fact of such an attempt causes significant damage to the manipulator. The main goal is hidden even more carefully - so that even the exposure of the very fact of an attempt at manipulation does not lead to the clarification of long-term intentions.

Thirdly, manipulation is an influence that requires significant skill and knowledge.

Manipulation is a way of domination through spiritual influence on people through programming their behavior. This influence is aimed at the mental structures of a person, is carried out secretly and aims to change the opinions, motives and goals of people in the direction desired by the authorities. It is in the conditions of mass culture that it is easiest to manipulate people.

The nature of manipulation consists in the presence of a double impact - along with the openly sent message, the manipulator sends a coded signal to the addressee, hoping that this signal will awaken in the recipient’s mind those images that the manipulator needs. The art of manipulation is to set the imagination process in the right direction, but in such a way that the person does not notice the hidden influence.

One of important functions modern mass culture consists of the mythologization of public consciousness. Works of mass culture, just like myths, are not based on the distinction between the real and the ideal. They become the subject not of knowledge, but of faith.

There is an opinion that the most adequate term expressing the essence of works of mass culture is the term icon. It is the icon that corresponds to the Russian concept of image. This term characterizes this type artistic reflection, which is symbolic, fundamentally unrealistic in nature, is an object of faith, worship, and not a means of reflecting and knowing the world.

Public opinion in its modern meaning and understanding appeared with the development of the bourgeois system and the formation of civil society as a sphere of life, independent of political power. In the Middle Ages, a person’s belonging to one class or another had direct political significance and strictly determined his social position. With the emergence of bourgeois society, the estates were replaced by open classes consisting of formally free and independent individuals. This was a prerequisite for the formation of influential public opinion.

However, public opinion is not always an absolute force expressing the interests of people. The fact is that in a developed democracy, with a stable socio-political situation, the role and importance of public opinion is clearly limited and balanced by a strong and authoritative representative government; its impact on government activity is carried out not directly, but indirectly, through forms of representative democracy. In addition, public opinion can be effectively managed. In the conditions of mass culture and standardization, this is easily achieved by competent specialists using various technologies of influence.

Not many representatives of society can resist the phenomena of mass influence manifested in advertising and propaganda. The factors and limits of such belief require careful analysis. In particular, this refers to the idea of the omnipotence of mass communicative influence on a mass audience, on a “mass” person, which frightens some and encourages others (depending on the position).

Psychologists such as S. Freud and Le Bon also speak about this feature of the masses. Mass psychology considers an individual person as a member of a tribe, people, caste, class, or as an integral part of a human crowd, which at a certain time and for a certain purpose is organized into a mass. The phenomena that appear in these special conditions are the expression of a special, deeper unfounded primary urge, which does not manifest itself in other situations. An individual, under a certain condition, feels, thinks and acts completely differently than could be expected from him when included in a human crowd that has acquired the property of a psychological mass.

Freud identifies qualities in mass individuals that they did not possess, and the reasons for this, in his opinion, are in the following three main points.

The third, and moreover the most important reason, determines in individuals united in a mass special qualities that are completely opposite to the qualities of an isolated individual. By them, Freud understands suggestibility, and the mentioned infectiousness is only its consequence. An individual who spends some time in the active mass falls into a special state, very close to the “enchantment” that takes over the hypnotized person under the influence of the hypnotist. The conscious personality is completely lost, the will and the ability to discriminate are absent, all feelings and thoughts are oriented in the direction indicated by the hypnotist.

The base instincts present in man are exploited by modern mass culture. The 20th century will go down in human history as the century of fear. Destructive wars, revolutions, catastrophes, and natural disasters contributed to the emergence in world artistic culture of the image of a “little man” who overcomes all the troubles that the outside world throws at him. The ancient Greeks created in art the image of a hero who existed organically with the world around him; artistic creativity of the 20th century widely exploits the image of a little man as a hero of our time.

Particularly successful in realizing the instinct of fear modern cinema, producing huge quantities of horror films, disaster films, and thrillers. Their main subjects are: natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, the Bermuda Triangle with its unsolved mysteries); just disasters (shipwrecks, plane crashes, fires); monsters (these include giant gorillas, aggressive sharks, creepy spiders, man-eating crocodiles, etc.); supernatural forces (we are talking about devils, antichrists, spirits, phenomena of transmigration of the soul, telekinesis); aliens.

In the last decades of the 20th century, tragic events in political life: acts of brutal terrorism and kidnappings increasingly began to be used as a reason for depicting disasters on film and television screens. Moreover, in the presentation and promotion of this material, what is most important is sensationalism, cruelty, and adventurism. And as a result, the human psyche, trained by disaster films, masterfully aestheticized by the commercial screen, gradually becomes insensitive to what is happening in real life. And instead of warning humanity against the possible destruction of civilization, such works of mass culture simply prepare us for this prospect.

The problem of realizing the instincts of cruelty and aggressiveness in works of art of mass culture is not new. Plato and Aristotle argued about whether a cruel artistic spectacle generates cruelty in the viewer, listener or reader. Plato considered the depiction of bloody tragedies a socially dangerous phenomenon. Aristotle - on the contrary - expected from the depiction of scenes of horror and violence the purification of recipients by catharsis, that is, he wanted to see a certain mental release that the recipient experiences in the process of empathy. For many years, the depiction of violence in art was characteristic of the margins of popular culture. Nowadays, the “super violence” that permeates books, plays, and films has come to the fore. Mass culture continuously releases more and more vicious and cruel films, records, and books to the public. Addiction to fictional violence is similar to drug addiction.

Today, people have different attitudes towards violence in artistic culture. Some believe that the topic of violence does not bring anything terrible into real life. Others believe that depictions of violence in fiction contribute to more violence in real life. Of course, it would be a simplification to see a direct connection between works that promote violence and the rise in crime. However, in a society of mass consumption of films, television programs, records - all this is part of real life. Artistic culture always has a huge impact on a person, evoking certain feelings.

Another reason for the emergence of mass culture is the emergence among a significant layer of working citizens of excess free time and leisure, due to the high level of mechanization of the production process. People increasingly have a need to “kill time.” “Mass culture” is designed to satisfy it, naturally for money, and it manifests itself primarily in the sensory sphere, i.e. in all types of literature and art. Particularly important channels for the general democratization of culture over the past decades have become cinema, television and, of course, sports (in its purely spectator part), gathering huge and not too discriminating audiences, driven only by the desire for psychological relaxation. This leads to another function of mass culture in modern society - relieving stress and helping to spend free time.

Mass culture cannot be viewed only from a negative perspective; in modern society it also performs some positive functions. True, it has very little positive influence on modern culture, increasingly satisfying lowered tastes.

Focus on material values, following the average taste - all this does not contribute to the cultural development of society.

The negative impact of mass culture on society. The culture of modern society is a combination of the most diverse layers of culture, that is, it consists of the dominant culture, subcultures and even countercultures. 34 Russians believe that mass culture has a negative impact on society and undermines its moral and ethical health.

The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) came to this result as a result of a study conducted in 2003. survey. The positive influence of mass culture on society was stated by 29 Russians surveyed, who believe that mass culture helps people relax and have fun. 24 respondents believe the role of show business and mass culture is greatly exaggerated and are convinced that they do not have a serious impact on society. 80 respondents are extremely negative about the use of profanity in public speaking show business stars, considering the use of obscene expressions an unacceptable manifestation of promiscuity and lack of talent. 13 respondents allow the use of profanity in cases where it is used as necessary artistic medium, and 3 believe that if it is often used in communication between people, then attempts to ban it on the stage, in cinema, on television are simply hypocrisy.

A negative attitude towards the use of profanity is also reflected in Russians’ assessments of the situation surrounding the conflict between journalist Irina Aroyan and Philip Kirkorov. 47 respondents sided with Irina Aroyan, while only 6 supported the pop star. 39 respondents showed no interest in this process at all. 47 Russians surveyed believe that bright characters television screens, being models and idols for a significant part of young people, must meet higher moral requirements than those that apply to ordinary people. 41 consider show business stars to be the same people as everyone else, and 6 respondents believe that some elements of defiant behavior on the part of pop characters are acceptable as creative and extraordinary people.

The development of the media led to the formation of the so-called mass culture, simplified in semantics and artistically, technologically accessible to everyone. Mass culture, especially with its strong commercialization, can displace both high and folk cultures.

Modern Russian culture is also characterized by a phenomenon that sociologists have called the Westernization of cultural needs and interests, primarily of youth groups.

Russian folk culture, traditions, customs, and rituals are perceived by most young people as an anachronism. The lack of national self-identification among Russian youth precisely leads to the easier penetration of Westernized values into the youth environment. In many ways, the youth subculture simply repeats and duplicates the television subculture. It should be noted here that since the early 1990s. mass culture in its screen and television forms is becoming increasingly negative.

For example, out of the 100 films most popular in Leningrad video salons, 52 had all the features of action films, 14 horror films, 18 karate films. At the same time, according to film experts, there was not a single film that was distinguished by artistic and aesthetic value, and only 5 had certain artistic merits. The repertoire of cinemas consists of 80-90 foreign films. No less negative consequences can be noted in the development of musical culture.

Such a type of mass culture as rock music was first banned at the official level in our country, and then just as immoderately exalted and idealized. Why speak out against rock music that is associated with folk traditions, traditions of political and art songs? There are also such trends as punk rock, heavy metal, etc., which undoubtedly have a countercultural, vandalistic character.

Many musical styles are characterized by syndromes of pessimism, motives of death, suicide, fear and alienation. The loss of humanistic content occurs in rock music due to the distortion of the natural human voice with all sorts of wheezes and squeals, deliberately broken by mocking intonations, the replacement of male voices with effeminate ones, and vice versa.

End of work -

This topic belongs to the section:

Mass culture

The concept of culture is very ambiguous, has different contents and different meaning not only in everyday language, but also in various sciences and philosophies.. If we recognize that one of the main signs of true culture is.. The culture of modern society is the totality of the most diverse layers of culture, that is, it consists of a dominant..

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