ABSTRACT
Mass culture has a very short breath, it has to be successive, to move on always and restlessly. It can rarely stay with any subject, even if that subject is, on a more careful view, very important and in need of longer attention. To recapitulate: mass art has its eye on the audience, as large an audience as possible, and conceived as one or to be melded into one. It is therefore inherently formulaic, like a warm and relaxing or, conversely, artificially exciting bath; which can be endlessly repeated. Popular culture will have some elements of its own, something put in without thought of the possible audience. Mass culture is or always seeks to be communitarian, ‘homey’, bland, puritanical and at the same time sexually voyeuristic; it provides warm straw to huddle in. In most of the developed world it dislikes abstract things and especially ‘issues’ in themselves; it moves instantly to personalisation.
