ECLI a05_t13

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Who exactly are the masses? 
 
The mass culture debate is based on the assumption that the audience, 
consumers and users of popular culture are a massive ‘lump’ of individuals – a 
‘mass’ – without free thought or critical awareness. This is a very difficult 
argument to uphold and it is insulting and elitist. It seems to suggest that 
some sociologists can see popular culture for the ‘intellectual wasteland’ it is, 
but that everyone else- ‘ordinary people’ – are tricked, fooled and controlled 
by it. 
 
Ien Ang suggests that it is very difficult truly to know how people engage with 
the media and popular culture since a great deal of their use occurs in the 
home behind closed doors or in the individual mind, and is therefore difficult 
to observe. Defining the audience/consumers as simply a ‘mass’ is unrealistic 
and gets in the way of true understanding. She notes that despite the fact 
that television has become a significant aspect of society and of people ´s 
daily lives, we know little about the actual audiences of the media in general 
and of TV in particular. So much so that the views of ‘ordinary viewers’ are 
often ignored by TV producers, or viewers are categorized into large masses 
and are seen as unthinking or fickle. This idea that the masses are ‘out there’ 
watching TV is little more than an abstraction and a gross generalization. It is 
not based on any real understanding of how people view TV and how they 
understand it. 
 
Raymond William is highly critical of those Marxist sociologists – such as the 
members of the Frankfurt School – who condemn popular culture as uncritical 
and therefore unworthy. T make such a claim is to devalue the culture of the 
working classes themselves – something that Marxist especially should not do 
given their emphasis on the need to help the working classes to break free 
from capitalism.