ABSTRACT
Academic study of culture up until the 1950s was largely limited to an exploration of high culture. Literature, art, architecture, music, etc. were deemed worthy of study because, supposedly, they articulated sophisticated and nuanced modes of thinking. Popular culture, conversely, was rejected as unworthy of analysis because the stories told by advertising, cinema and the then emerging form of television were thought to be constructed with so little precision, and their effects so simple, that any academic attention was undeserving.
Barthes, however, realised that the mass media ought to be taken seriously and his 1957 essay collection, Mythologies, stands as one of the first serious attempts to evaluate the finesse and impact of mass media narratives. Indeed, Barthes Mythologies revels in popular culture, analysing everything from wrestling to horoscopes, from car adverts to political news. Barthes’ writing intuited that mass media forms affected a deep presence within society – an ideological presence whose scope and influence far outstripped the nuanced reach of high culture.
