When you buy a music disc in a store, you see sections - standard jazz, standard country, standard classic, standard rap. The choice of standards is unlimited.
The choice of film standards is even wider. Every demographic - blacks, Latinos, intellectuals, working class, baby boomers, gays, teenagers, retirees, action movie buffs and fans of old 19th century British aristocracy - all get their share. There is a standard for a traditional family film, a standard for thrill-seekers, a standard for those who enjoy sophisticated European aesthetics. The hundreds of new films released each year, as well as the hundreds of television channels, leave the consumer with the feeling that the differences between them are so superficial that they are practically indistinguishable.
"Most American films are frozen dinners, usually with no trace of life." Andrey Konchalovsky.
Cable or satellite television provides hundreds of channels covering thousands of topics - programs about police work, surveys of people on the street, films about the history of the country and the world, biographical series, but they all give the impression that it was made by the same director, on the same assembly line. At the same time, the consumer has a choice - this is a remote control that he holds in his hands and can always switch to another program. But even on another program he will see only a standard spectacle or standard news - what those who own the funds want to show him mass media.
To attract the attention of the public, a product of mass culture must be bright, spectacular, and therefore significant phenomena of the American cultural life These are not those that talk about the main issues of life, but peripheral events, extreme in their entertainment - robberies, murders, political scandals, a car or plane crash, an earthquake in California or a flood in New Orleans.
"In popular culture, the quality of things, events and human qualities have no value. Only the effect that a thing, person or event does is valued." Italian writer Barzini.
Mass culture is not created by free artists seeking answers to the eternal questions of life, it is created by performers who carry out orders as professionals, specialists, subject to the laws of production.
Popular culture says that if you don’t like something in your life, draw yourself a dream, believe in the dream, replace reality with the dream, live in the dream, just like many generations before you did, living the “American Dream”.
Sylvester Stallone's hero in the film "Rambo IV" alone restores order in Southeast Asia. He wins where american army suffered a crushing defeat. Although this contradicts historical facts, the viewer believes the impressive spectacle, and not historical facts, which he does not care about. All social problems are decided by one person, alone. The system educates the masses on the idea - “One can make a difference”, one person can change the world.
During the Stalin era, great importance was attached to the influence of individual people on the life of the entire country. In case of economic, political and military failures, responsibility was assigned to specific performers. As Stalin spoke about the ways social problems, "no person, no problem." The result of the Stalinist approach is productivity of executions and an unproductive economic system. But the Stalinist method made it possible to remove responsibility from the system itself, which became inaccessible to criticism.
The same principle is reflected in the American formula - “One can make a difference”, which uses the paradoxical property of human mass consciousness - the concreteness of experience, which says that one cannot change anything, and the ability to believe in the illusion that the world can be changed alone. The world is being changed by the entire system, in which an individual person is just a grain of sand in a huge stream of sand. Mass culture is part of this flow, and more and more “grains of sand” from many countries and continents are pouring into it, cosmopolitan, international mass culture.
Thanks to the development of various new types of communications that have connected the world into a single whole, the unification of all national cultures, natural in this process, begins to occur, and each individual national culture refuses its specificity, since national specificity is provincial and cannot enter the global market.
At one of the forums “A Zealous Fan” of television, Zhalkov N.A. wrote “Television has a huge impact on the consciousness of people, society and everyday life in general. The power of TV lies in its deep impact on the human mind, many TV channel managers understand this, and in pursuit of crazy ratings, they broadcast programs designed for the base instincts of the population. Therefore, for example, on Channel One you rarely see programs aimed at improving people’s morality, and if you do, it’s only late in the evening. But Channel One is not the worst. Just look at “Dom-2” on TNT! But this reality show is intended for young and fragile souls. For example, my family. Some members of my family are at home all day and, of course, watch TV. So by the end of the day they become more nervous, irritable, and often take it out on their relatives. Our television is structured in such a way that, turning on the TV in the morning, the average person immediately begins to see various crimes committed overnight, shown in the most perverted form, to hear about corruption, protest rallies, and courtroom hearings. One may not even be surprised by the increasing violence in our society. An example is an event that happened quite recently, namely on November 12, 2008: three 12-year-old children beat a baby kangaroo to death with sticks on the head. It seems to me that all this is precisely the influence of television, that stream of violence pouring from the screen, on the weak and unformed children’s mind. The NTV channel is especially different in this, and not only that. Based on the example of my family, I guess that this influence occurs on all people in general. People become tougher, crueler, harsher, more embittered. That is why such concepts as mutual assistance, sympathy, and mercy disappear from our lives. And endless series! These so-called “works” do not shine with either direction or acting. And the intellectual level of both the characters in the series and, apparently, the screenwriters is below the lowest limit. That is why our “great” nation is becoming stupid! That's why they stop reading Dostoevsky and Bulgakov. After all, in the series, these stupid heroes achieve all the material benefits without resorting to their mental abilities.
Thus, it seems to me that modern television is based only on negativity, pouring in streams onto our poor heads...” [6]
The words and symbols used in it are designed to change the behavior of the TV viewer and shape him as a consumer. At the same time, the most receptive audience is children from four to sixteen years old. Well, “customer formation” begins even earlier...
In the article by Maxim Shulgin, various situations related to the influence of television on children were collected.
“When my child was not yet two years old,” one mother wrote on the forum, “I was surprised at the mesmerizing effect commercials had on him. By what signs my daughter distinguished advertising remained a mystery to me, but as soon as it started, the little girl ran as fast as she could into the room and froze motionless in front of the TV. At that moment, you could do anything with her - there was only a bright TV picture, the daughter did not react to anything else. And as soon as the TV was turned off, the siren immediately turned on - the child began to cry loudly.
Later I found out that many parents encountered this phenomenon. Children, who are attracted by a bright picture and a funny plot (and older ones, by the advertised product), make up more than half of the viewing audience of commercials. In one of the online forums, a mother admitted that she used advertising screensavers in order to feed her one-year-old daughter, who ate very poorly. Another mother managed to cut her two-year-old’s nails during commercials, and another even managed to cut her hair. This is just the beginning... At the same forum, visitors shared unimaginable stories from their lives. Someone told how a friend’s five-year-old daughter came into her parents’ bedroom at night and asked: “Does Tefal also think about us at night?” Someone shared their impressions of what they saw: “A three-year-old baby walked around the supermarket and, pointing with his finger at the products on display, recited: “Cleanliness - pure Tide!”, “Forget about dandruff - let your hair be beautiful”, “Danone - - a magical taste of health." The kid clearly couldn’t read yet, but advertising slogans were already firmly ingrained in his head...”; “Just recently I saw how two little kids about five years old cut out pads from paper and expertly inserted Barbie dolls into their panties...”
The influence of advertising on children worries many parents today, because it is possible to keep their children away from the TV only up to a certain age. Slightly older children and teenagers are becoming increasingly active consumers. To be fair, it should be noted that children’s consumer culture is largely shaped by their favorite cartoons. For example, Disney stories about Uncle Scrooge and his duckling nephews come down mainly to the search for ways to get rich, instilling in young viewers the main dream and commandment of a market society. Meanwhile, according to the observations of the famous American sociologist Juliet Skor, children who are interested in consumer culture eventually grow into depressed and lonely teenagers.
For a long time, it was believed among psychologists that it was mainly problem children who suffered from the fact that they could not possess advertised goods who fell into the web of consumerism. Many parents believe that videos promoting expensive clothes, toys and gadgets that poor families cannot afford are increasing social divides. However, the results of Dr. Skor's research prove that consumerism may be the cause of depression, and not vice versa. Being drawn into the consumer cycle, previously healthy children begin to feel a constant feeling of anxiety, headaches and even stomach cramps; their sense of self-esteem weakens, alienation and hostility towards parents and teachers arise.
Symptoms of "consumer disease" include constant sitting in front of the TV and computer games, extreme preoccupation with one’s own appearance, clothing, and craving for fame and wealth. Television advertising intrusively creates a completely unnatural lifestyle. Appealing to the basest feelings of the consumer, advertisers repeat: “You deserve this luxury!”, “You deserve it!”, “Treat yourself!” ... And children trustingly accept these calls at face value.
Where can I get money for all the attributes of success? The authors of the commercials carefully suggest the “correct” way: cut out the label or candy wrapper, and you will definitely be lucky - you will win a trip around the world or, at worst, a video console. Just hurry up, because “everyone more people preparing for battle... People will do anything to collect the most wrappers and become the winner. Turn on!” If the heroes of advertising go to work, it seems that only to have a cup instant coffee, tea, bottle mineral water, eat yogurt and - “Let the whole world wait!” But for a child (especially a small one) they - real characters. The lifestyle of advertising “heroes”, their tastes, preferences, and manner of speech become a standard for the child. To put it mildly, a very strange standard, which constantly suffers from caries, dandruff, bad breath and indigestion. Which is not surprising, considering that he eats mostly chips, packet soups and beer, and his clothes constantly have stains that can only be removed with a certain type of powder. At the same time, no matter what is advertised, a huge portion of commercials contain sexual overtones. Sometimes it is even difficult to understand what exactly is being advertised.
Advertisers are trying their best to appeal to teenagers, realizing that they make up a significant part of the television audience. And the easiest way is to speak in a language they understand. Therefore speech young heroes in the videos it is oversaturated with teenage slang: “cool”, “cool”, “cool”, “have a blast”, “don’t slow down - take a snicker”.
Children are an excellent audience: they have more free time, many have pocket money, and they also go shopping with their parents, asking for that candy bar, yogurt, or toy they saw advertised on TV. Large American corporations spend about $15 billion annually on advertising products for children under 12 years of age. In order to more effectively influence the fragile minds of children, a huge staff of psychologists, sociologists and specialists in child development. The budgets of Ukrainian advertisers, I think, are smaller, but they are trying their best to catch up with their American colleagues. “Successes” are already evident today.
What should parents do? American psychologist S. Adams Sullivan believes that in shaping the view of advertising in young children, the attitude of their parents towards it is very important. In his Encyclopedia for Fathers, he suggests solving the problem by acting out several skits in which the parent and child take turns playing the roles of buyer and seller. The parent tries to “sell” a completely unnecessary product to the child so that the child understands that the product itself is not so good as the seller needs to sell it. Then let the child try to persuade the parent to “buy” something. Perhaps after this he will begin to treat advertising as a game, or perhaps he will understand that advertising is just an attempt to impose someone’s opinion. The main thing is to explain to your child that advertising should be treated selectively and that the absence of any thing, even a very good one, does not harm one’s self-esteem, and life does not get any worse from it. [7]
So what influence does “mass culture” have? Positive or negative?
In general, existing points of view can be divided into two groups. Representatives of the first group (Adorno, Marcuse, etc.) give a negative assessment of this phenomenon. In their opinion, mass culture forms in its consumers a passive perception of reality. This position is argued by the fact that works of mass culture offer ready-made answers to what is happening in the sociocultural space around the individual. In addition, some theorists of mass culture believe that under its influence the system of values changes: the desire for entertainment and entertainment becomes dominant. The negative aspects associated with the influence of mass culture on public consciousness also include the fact that mass culture is based not on an image oriented to reality, but on a system of images that influence the unconscious sphere of the human psyche.
This group also includes the authors of the Teaching of Living Ethics (the Mahatmas, the Roerich family). According to the Living Ethics paradigm, mass culture is essentially a pseudo-culture, since, unlike true culture (i.e., high culture), in most of its forms it does not contribute to humanistically oriented social progress and spiritual evolution of man. The calling and purpose of true culture is the ennobling and perfection of man. Popular culture performs inverse functions- it reanimates the lower aspects of consciousness and instincts, which, in turn, stimulate the ethical, aesthetic and intellectual degradation of the individual.
Meanwhile, researchers who adhere to an optimistic point of view on the role of mass culture in the life of society point out that:
· it attracts to itself the masses who do not know how to use their resources productively free time;
· creates a kind of semiotic space that promotes closer interaction between members of a high-tech society;
· provides an opportunity for a wide audience to become acquainted with works of traditional (high) culture.
And yet, it is likely that the opposition between definitely positive and definitely negative assessments of mass culture will not be entirely correct. It is obvious that the influence of mass culture on society is far from clear. This is one of the main problems of analyzing popular culture.
Drawing a conclusion on this point, we can highlight that “mass culture” is firmly entrenched in modern society, and expect its spontaneous disappearance, at least in the near future historical period, not necessary. It is obvious that if it continues to exist in its present form, then the overall cultural potential of civilization will not only not increase, but may also suffer significant damage. “Mass culture” has both positive and negative sides. It is not possible to clearly determine the advantage of one of these parties. The pseudo-values of mass culture are still too burdensome and even destructive for the individual and society. Therefore, an ideological transformation of mass culture is necessary through filling it with more sublime ideas, socially significant plots and aesthetically perfect images.
The concept of “culture” is very polysemantic, has different content and different meanings not only in everyday language, but also in different sciences and philosophical disciplines.
The concept of “culture” must be revealed in its differential-dynamic aspects, which requires the use of the categories “social practice” and “activity”, connecting the categories “social being” and “social consciousness”, “objective” and “subjective” in historical process. In modern domestic philosophical literature the concept of “activity” appears as one of the most fundamental characteristics of human existence. At the same time, it is also generally accepted that a person is an “active natural being” that asserts itself in the world, in its being. Thus, we can say that through the concept of “activity” the specificity of the social form of the movement of matter is expressed.
If we recognize that one of the main features of true culture is the heterogeneity and richness of its manifestations, based on national-ethnic and class-class differentiation, then in the 20th century the enemy of cultural “polyphony” turned out to be not only Bolshevism, which by its nature does not accept any pluralism. In the conditions of “industrial society” and scientific and technological revolution, humanity as a whole has discovered a clearly expressed tendency towards pattern and monotony to the detriment of any types of originality and originality, whether we are talking about an individual person or about certain social layers and groups. Modern state, like a giant machine, with the help of unified education systems and equally coordinated information, continuously “stamps” faceless human “material” that is obviously doomed to anonymity. If the Bolsheviks and their followers sought to forcibly transform people and some semblance of “cogs,” then from the middle of our century the processes of standardization everyday life have acquired an involuntary and all-encompassing character throughout the world, with the exception of the remote periphery.
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. In any society one can distinguish high culture (elite) and folk culture (folklore). 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, is capable of displacing both high and folk culture. But in general, the attitude towards popular culture is not so clear.
The phenomenon of “mass culture” from the point of view of its role in development modern civilization Scientists assess it far from unambiguously. Depending on the inclination towards an elitist or populist way of thinking, cultural scientists tend to consider it either something like a social pathology, a symptom of the degeneration of society, or, conversely, important factor his health and internal stability. The first, largely fueled by the ideas of F. Nietzsche, included O. Spengler, X. Ortega y Gasset, E. Fromm, N.A. Berdyaev and many others. The latter are represented by the already mentioned L. White and T. Parsons. 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 her alienation from real life; distracts people from their main task - “the spiritual and practical development of the world” (K. Marx). The apologetic approach, on the contrary, is expressed in the fact that “mass culture” is proclaimed as a natural consequence of irreversible scientific and technological progress, that it contributes to the unity of people, especially young people, regardless of any ideologies and national-ethnic differences into a stable social system and not just doesn't reject cultural heritage of the past, but also makes its best examples the property of the widest strata of the people by replicating them through print, radio, television and industrial reproduction. The debate about the harm or benefit of “mass culture” has a purely political aspect: both democrats and supporters of authoritarian power, not without reason, strive to use this objective and very important phenomenon of our time in their interests. During the Second World War and in the post-war period, the problems of “mass culture”, especially its most important element - mass information, were studied with equal attention in both democratic and totalitarian states.
Concept, historical conditions and stages of the formation of 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. This type of culture is called mass culture cultural products, which 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. It is the culture of everyday life, presented to the widest audience through various channels, including the 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 of the 17th-18th centuries of the adventure, detective, and adventurous novel, which significantly expanded the readership due to huge circulations (books by D. Defoe, M. Komarov).
3. The law on compulsory universal literacy, adopted in 1870 in Great Britain, had a great influence on the development of mass culture, which allowed many to master the main form of artistic creativity XIX century - 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. The famous American political scientist Z. Brzezinski has a phrase that has become commonplace over time: “If Rome gave the world the right, England parliamentary activity, France - culture and republican nationalism, then modern SSL gave the world a scientific and technological revolution and mass culture.”
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. The active role of the human masses in various social spheres was analyzed in a number of philosophical works of the 20th century. As, for example, the American sociologist D. Bell in his book “Horses of Ideology” determines the features of modern society by the emergence of mass production and mass consumption. Here the author formulates several meanings of the word “mass”:
1. Mass - as an undifferentiated set (i.e., the opposite of the concept of class).
2. Mass - as a synonym for ignorance (as X. Ortega y Gasset also wrote about this).
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 may be cultured by himself, but in a crowd he is a barbarian.
And D. Bell concludes: the masses are the embodiment of herdism, uniformity, and stereotypes.
An even more in-depth analysis of “mass culture” was made by the Canadian sociologist M. McLuhan. But he, like D. Bell, comes to the conclusion that the media give rise to new type culture. McLuhan emphasizes that the starting point of the era of “industrial and typographical man” was the invention of the printing press by J. Guttenberg in the 15th century. Modern media, having created, in McLuhan’s words, a “global village,” is also creating a “new tribal man.” This new person differs from the “tribal” who once lived on earth in that its myths are formed by “electronic information”. According to McLuhan, printing technology created the public, electronic technology created the masses. Defining art as the leading element of spiritual culture, McLuhan emphasized the escapist (i.e., leading away from reality) function of artistic culture.
Of course, these days the mass has changed significantly. The masses have become educated and informed. In addition, the subjects of mass culture today are not just the masses, but also individuals united by various connections. Since people act simultaneously as individuals, and as members of local groups, and as members of mass social communities, the subject of “mass culture” can be considered as dual, that is, both individual and mass at the same time. In turn, the concept of “mass culture” characterizes the features of the production of cultural values in modern industrial society, designed for mass consumption of this culture. At the same time, mass production of culture is understood in analogy with the conveyor belt industry.
Features and functions of mass culture in modern society
The origins of the widespread spread of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all public 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. 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. Mass culture is largely oriented not towards 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, 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 typical behaviours, attitudes, conventional wisdom, prejudices and expectations large quantity people.
When considering popular culture, we inevitably encounter 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 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, it is a kind of spiritual, psychological impact(not physical violence or 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 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 open message sent, 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 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 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, 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).
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 need not be taken into account.
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, estate, or as an integral part of the human crowd, in known time and for a specific purpose 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.
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 manifest themselves or turn 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 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.
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, catastrophes, and natural disasters contributed to the appearance of the image “ little man", who overcomes all the troubles that are thrown at him outside world. 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.
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, 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.
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, 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 last decades In the 20th century, tragic events in political life began to be increasingly used as a reason for depicting disasters on film and television screens: acts of brutal terrorism and kidnappings. 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 depictions of violence in art were 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 increased 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, 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 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 fulfills some positive functions. Is it true positive influence on modern culture it provides very little, increasingly satisfying lower tastes.
Focus on material values, following the average taste - all this does not contribute cultural development society.
- , adapted to the tastes of the broad masses of people, is technically replicated in the form of many copies and distributed using modern communication technologies.
The emergence and development of mass culture is associated with the rapid development of mass media, capable of exerting a powerful influence on the audience. IN media There are usually three components:
- media(newspapers, magazines, radio, television, Internet blogs, etc.) - replicate information, have a regular impact on the audience and are aimed at certain groups of people;
- means of mass influence(advertising, fashion, cinema, popular literature) - do not always regularly influence the audience, are aimed at the average consumer;
- technical means of communication(Internet, telephone) - determine the possibility of direct communication between a person and a person and can be used to transmit personal information.
Let us note that not only the media have an impact on society, but society also seriously influences the nature of the information transmitted in the media. Unfortunately, the demands of the public often turn out to be low culturally, which reduces the level of television programs, newspaper articles, variety shows, etc.
In recent decades, in the context of the development of means of communication, they talk about a special computer culture. If previously the main source of information was the book page, now it is the computer screen. A modern computer allows you to instantly receive information over the network, supplement the text with graphic images, videos, and sound, which ensures a holistic and multi-level perception of information. In this case, text on the Internet (for example, a web page) can be represented as hypertext. those. contain a system of references to other texts, fragments, non-textual information. The flexibility and versatility of computer information display tools greatly enhance the degree of its impact on humans.
At the end of XX - beginning of XXI V. mass culture began to play an important role in ideology and economics. However, this role is ambiguous. On the one hand, mass culture made it possible to reach wide sections of the population and introduce them to cultural achievements, presenting them in simple, democratic and understandable images and concepts, but on the other hand, it created powerful mechanisms for manipulating public opinion and forming an average taste.
The main components of mass culture include:
- information industry- the press, television news, talk shows, etc., explaining current events in clear language. Mass culture was initially formed in the sphere of the information industry - the “yellow press” of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Time has shown the high efficiency of mass communication in the process of manipulating public opinion;
- leisure industry- films, entertaining literature, pop humor with the most simplified content, pop music, etc.;
- formation system mass consumption, which centers on advertising and fashion. Consumption here is presented as a non-stop process and the most important goal of human existence;
- replicated mythology - from the myth of the “American Dream”, where beggars turn into millionaires, to the myths of “national exceptionalism” and the special virtues of one or another people compared to others.