ABSTRACT
This chapter deals mainly with the 19th century, exploring mass society as a comprehensive West European phenomenon, integrating closely linked political, social, demographic, economic and cultural dimensions. The discussion begins with a survey of common perceptions of “mass society,” which are usually strongly laden ideologically. In order to better understand “mass society,” it proceeds to trace, with a broad brush, the key processes to which this concept takes reference. What exactly happened in the new era on the social, economic, political and cultural spheres, which gave cause to historians, sociologists and psychologists to employ the concept of “the masses” in the first place and then to refer back to it as often as they did? “Mass society” is an umbrella term covering a broad spectrum of significant modern innovations and developments affecting nearly all spheres of life in Western societies. Rather than taking these changes for granted, or over-generalizing about their nature, they are divided into central departments or areas, for example changes that were mainly political, others that were mostly demographic, cultural, economic, etc. In the course of the chapter such central components of mass society are described as the rise of mass democracy, the growing role of trade unions, population growth and expansion of urban centers, changes in the status of women and in relations between the genders, and the emergence of mass culture and nascent consumerism.
