Mass Culture

Question 1

When did the emergence of Mass Culture occur?

Answer 1

c. 1870-1930

Question 2

What is Mass Culture?

Answer 2

Modern societies which share culture and large-scale impersonal instituions

Question 3

What are two main features of Mass Culture?

Answer 3

Urbanisation

Industrialisation

Question 4

What’s an example of Urbanisation?

Answer 4

1870-70 European Towns of 100,000

1900-200

Question 5

What role did Industrialisation have upon Mass Culture?

Answer 5

Standardized ways of work and living

Question 6

What concern did the elite have over the unenfranchised?

Answer 6

They would not be able to use their vote wisely if given it

Question 7

What, if the mass weren’t uneducated, should have the elite done?

Answer 7

They must educate through leisure the masses

Question 8

Who did the government need the support of?

Answer 8

The masses

Question 9

What two examples show the way the masses were targetted?

Answer 9

Mass markets and advertising

Rise of European Fascism

Question 10

What impact did mass production and consumerism have upon culture?

Answer 10

Meant more people were working and had more time for leisure

Question 11

What did “ready-made” leisure forms encourage?

Answer 11

Passivity and apathy

Question 12

What did modernity bring to communication?

Answer 12

Opened new forms of communication with masses but weakened ties between state/individual

Question 13

What does Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier demonstrate?

Answer 13

That without cheap luxuries the people result but due to apathetic nature they do not

Question 14

What did the apathetic nature create a fear of?

Answer 14

Britain would become an ideological background for Fascism

Question 15

What was there a wave of in the late 19th Century?

Answer 15

National Institutions

Question 16

What was the aim in creating National Institutions?

Answer 16

Create a national identity

Question 17

What was the aim of the Coronation?

Answer 17

To reinforce belief in the monarchy at a time of instability for European monarchs

Question 18

What happened to the Coronation?

Answer 18

It was codified rather than made ad hoc

Question 19

When was the BBC created?

Answer 19

1922

Question 20

Why was the BBC created?

Answer 20

The best way to reach the masses

Question 21

What was the BBC?

Answer 21

The guardians of national culture

Question 22

Why was the BBC contradictory?

Answer 22

Because while it was using modern technology it was imposing an elitist view of mass culture

Question 23

Why were radios not as successful for the elite?

Answer 23

The masses did not use them as intended

Question 24

How did the masses use radios unexpectedly?

Answer 24

Public as well as Private listening
American style continental radio more popular than BBC
Not passive customers

Question 25

What was the most popular form of mass culture?

Answer 25

Cinema

Question 26

What influence did big film companies have upon mass culture?

Answer 26

Used the same actors

Question 27

How can it be argued cinema made the masses reactive rather than passive?

Answer 27

Film critics were paid close attention to and people found more entertaining than the films

Question 28

What was the cinema a place of?

Answer 28

'Romantic Interests'

Question 29

What was Americanization perceived as?

Answer 29

A corrupting influence on national life

Question 30

Why was Americanization not as big a problem as it may seem?

Answer 30

Because the audiences were seeking to escape to see the glitz and glamour rather than the wooden British films

Question 31

How successful were the elite in creating a national culture?

Answer 31

The Working Class formed their own national life