Mass Culture and Popular Culture

Culture, as a way of human expression, encompasses everything from art, music, literature, and much more. In the field of culture and cultural studies, mass culture and popular culture emerge as contrasting dimensions, playing influential roles in society. Mass culture is produced for mass consumption, depending on the supply-demand chain. It focuses on non-discriminating individual topics and is easy to produce. There are no meaningful messages since no effort is required to understand. Thus, it is consumed with brain-numbing passivity.

Another aspect is its widespread effects. It is manipulative, because those who create mass culture keep people in a certain ideology, controlling their tastes and demands. In this sense, power relations are influential, as power holders have the authority to shape the perception of cultural activities. Mass culture is commercial culture as opposed to high culture, and is often associated with the American influence on global culture. Therefore, everyone is exposed to the same taste. Mass culture acts as a celebration of the authentic working class, being against the elitism of the middle and upper classes.

Popular culture, on the other hand, challenges the distinction between low and high (or artistic) culture. It is the culture widely favored and well-liked by the majority of people. It can be defined as the culture that's left over after high and mass culture is decided, a residual category. Since one is still able to make judgments, it retains an elitist approach. Popular culture provides a culture that works as a collective dream world by promoting and selling things. Free time such as holidays, where people run away from problems of daily life, provides them with a relaxing, dream world. Individuals becoming a part of the fictional world may cause over-identification with characters, especially those from movies, and the capitalist system makes a profit from people's admiration as people collect items related to the universe they are fond of. Additionally, there is a sense of escapism to utopian selves.

Popular culture is often confused with mass culture, which is commercial and ideological, and makes people feel better using the resources of dominant, mass culture, to make a new meaning. It is also an arena of consent and resistance in the struggle over cultural meaning, where cultural hegemony is secured or challenged. This resistance is usually playful and creative. In this sense, popular culture involves consumption rather than production; but it is a creative one, allowing us to identify with items of popular culture. Some examples of products that create a dream image: are Harry Potter’s glasses, the Quidditch game, Spiderman’s web shooter and costumes, and Ironman’s robotic suit. These mass culture products create a group image and become part of popular culture, because they bring pleasure to their fans, allowing identification.