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mass culture  

Definition

  • Mass culture is a pejorative term developed by both conservative literary critics and Marxist theorists from the 1930s onwards to suggest the inferiority of commodity-based capitalist culture as being inauthentic, manipulative and unsatisfying. This inauthentic mass culture is contrasted to the authenticity claimed for high culture (as well as to an imagined people's culture). [Source: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies; Mass Culture]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/mass_culture

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