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Mass society formed itself during the 19th century industrialisation process, through the division of labour, the large-scale industrial organisation, the concentration of urban populations, the growing centralisation of decision-making, the development of a complex and international communication system, and the growth of mass political movements. The term "mass society" therefore was introduced by anti-capitalist aristocratic ideologists and used against the values and practices of industrialized society.
As Alan Swingewood points out in The Myth of Mass Culture (1977:5-8), the aristocratic theory of mass society is to be linked to the moral crisis caused by the weakening of traditional centers of authority such as family and religion. The society predicted by Ortega Y Gasset , T.S. Eliot and others would be dominated by philistine masses, without centers or hierarchies of moral or cultural authority. In such a society, art can only survive by cutting its links with the masses, by withdrawing as an asylum for threatened values. Throughout the 20th century, this type of theory has modulated on the opposition between disinterested, pure, autonomous art and commercialized mass culture.
At first sight diametrically opposed to the aristocratic view would be the theory of culture industry developed by Frankfurt School theoreticians such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. In their view, the masses are precisely dominated by an all-encompassing culture industry obeying only to the logic of consumer capitalism. Gramsci's concept of hegemony (see: cultural hegemony), that is, the domination of society by a specific group which stays in power by partially taking care of, and partially repressing the claims of other groups, doesn't work here anymore. The principle of hegemony as a goal to achieve for an oppressed social class loses its meaning. The system has taken over, only the state apparatus dominates .
A third view on popular culture, which fits in the liberal-pluralist ideology, and is often called "progressive evolutionism", is overtly optimistic. It sees capitalist economy as creating opportunities for every individual to participate in a culture which is fully democratized through mass education, expansion of leisure time and cheap records and paperbacks. As Swingewood points out (1977:22), there is no question of domination here anymore. In this view, popular culture doesn't threaten high culture, but is an authentic expression of the needs of the people.
If we forget precursors such as Umberto EcoUmberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian novelist and philosopher, best known for his novels and essays. Biography and opus Eco was born in Alessandria, in the Italian province of Piedmont. He is an author and semiotician. He works as a professor for a moment, popular culture studies as we know them today were developed in the late seventies and the eighties. The first influential works were generally politically left-wing and rejected the "aristocratic" view. However they also criticized the pessimism of the Frankfurt School: contemporary studies on mass culture accept that, apparently, popular culture forms do respond to widespread needs of the public. They also emphasized the capacity of the consumers to resist indoctrination and passive reception. Finally, they avoided any monolithic concept of mass culture. Instead they tried to describe culture as a whole as a complex formation of discourses which indeed correspond to particular interests, and which indeed can be dominated by specific groups, but which also always are dialectically related to their producers and consumers.
A nice example of this tendency is Andrew Ross's No Respect. Intellectuals and Popular Culture (1989). His chapter on the history of jazz, blues and rock, does not present a linear narrative opposing the authentic popular music to the commercial record industry, but shows how popular music in the US, from the twenties until today, evolved out of complex interactions between popular, avant-garde and commercial circuits, between lower and middle class kids, between blacks and whites.
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