Course Description

This course aims to examine the development of mass society, mass production, consumption and the American consumer from the late 19th century to the present. Areas considered may include industrialization and the development of work in relation to leisure, Worlds Fairs, the development of the advertising industry, the impact of American suburbanization on consumer behavior, television, technology, shopping, mass production and consumption.



Course Instructor: Matthew Ferguson, Department of American Studies - Rutgers University

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Mass Culture Meets Mass Protests

Description: http://www.politickerny.com/files/2011/10/111010073748-ipad-occupy-wall-street-1010-story-top.jpg

In light of the recent protests on Wall Street and the subsequent events occurring in cities across the globe, the idea of mass culture and an ambiguous working class have come up throughout the analysis and media coverage of the events. The idea of the 99% is a simplified catch phrase for the struggles of working class and middle class Americans in the modern day consumer driven world. Occupy protests have primarily been driven by social media and the internet. Today’s workers utilize these new technologies as a way to initially rest and escape from work, but the same technology is now being used to exercise First Amendment Rights. Lizabeth Cohen discusses the idea of mass culture and mass consumption in the 1920's and how it helped "unify workers previously divided along racial, ethnic, and regional lines" (pg. 162). Prior to mass produced films and music, ethnic groups were contained to what they knew from their roots. Once mass culture became more influential through jazz and nationalized radio, the working class began to connect on the same level. Using the same observations made in 1920's Chicago, it is possible to connect them to contemporary issues like Occupy.

Mass culture and mass produced items such as smart-phones and other technological communication devices have somewhat blurred the lines between classes. In the 1920's phonographs and radios were early forms of communication technologies that truly helped liberate the cultural consciousness of every type of group in the United States. Cohen describes how ethnic groups such as Polish, Italian, and Mexican immigrants would purchase foreign language records and play them on American made phonographs (pg. 148). Similar to the early use of radio and phonographs, people who purchase iPhones and create Facebook accounts do not necessarily use them as the manufacturer intended. These technologies which were initially intended for a mass culture became adopted by the different ethnic groups in a way that brought them together as well as celebrated and preserved their individual differences.

The demographics of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park, NYC, as reported by USA Today, are surprising when compared to the assumptions by many that the protesters are young unemployed college kids. The "average age is 33" which means that for every college kid there is a "mid-career professional in their 40's" (USA Today). The ambiguous idea of the 99% is similar to the idea of “mass culture”. The simultaneous preservation of culture as well as the acceptance of mass culture is similar to the collective populist desires of the occupy protestors. Although the movement has a cohesive undertone of reform and wealth disparity, it can also be broken up into smaller segments of ideologies and political direction that sometimes contradict the movement as a whole. Factors such as false consciousness between disparate ethnic groups existed in 1920’s Chicago and today, but the Occupy movement seems to be furthering the idea of a collective working class group.

USA Today Article: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-shows-politics-age-diversity/1

- Christopher Chasty Section 001

2 comments:

  1. Bringing in the Occupy Movement was very pertinent. I agree that the 99% and mass culture are parallel concepts. These ideas speak to power the working classes have in in numbers but also confirm the segmentation of the population by race, geography and socio economic status. All three of which are quite divisive. In addition I do not think that current technologies are blurring lines between the classes. I would argue that smart-phones and the internet have aided mass culture in getting better connected to personal pursuits, as opposed to the unifying tendencies of early radio and social organizations. It seems to me that in today’s world of quick distractions any movement for meaningful change will have to effectively keep the attention of the 99% in order to get incite action.

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  2. Technologies such as smart phones and social networking have drastically affected the organization of the Occupy movement across the country and more recently, the world. Such innovations have united the people in a great way. Unfortunately, products such as the iPhone and others are produced overseas for cheap, making companies billions, and then redistributed for a larger, unfair price.

    The word’s “culture” and “materialism/consumerism” are not interchangeable. It is sad that American culture is seen as such, but it is true. While other nations have real “rooted” culture, ours focuses mainly on the consumption of products and good, more more more; hence, the American culture.

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