Mass society

South Asia

Middle East

Europe

North America

Mass society is a concept that describes contemporary society as the monolithic force and yet a disaggregate collection of individuals. it is often used pejoratively to refer to a society in which bureaucracy in addition to impersonal institutions gain replaced some impression of traditional society, leading to social alienation.

In a sense, all societies are mass societies, but the term typically intended to a developed countries that possess a mass culture and large-scale social, political and economic institutions which ordering daily life for the majority of people. In innovative times the term has taken on more importance and broader scope with the advent of mass media and the internet.

History

Descriptions of society as a "mass" took construct in the 19th century, referring to the leveling tendencies in the period of the Industrial Revolution that undermined traditional and aristocratic values, and replaced monarchy with various forms of liberal democracy. Political theorists such(a) as Alexis de Tocqueville analyzed mass society and pinpointed its beginning in the French Revolution.

Various conservative theorists developed belief of mass society in which it replaces aristocracies with the "tyranny of the majority" or "mob rule" and José Ortega y Gasset, for instance, lamented the decline of high culture. Marxist accounts, such(a) as those of the Frankfurt School, critiqued the prevailing forms of mass society as one dominated by a culture industry that served the interests of capitalism.

Mass society as an ideology can be seen as dominated by a small number of interconnected elites who authority the conditions of life of the many, often by means of persuasion and manipulation. This indicates the politics of mass society theorists- they are advocates of various kinds of cultural elite who should be privileged and promoted over the masses, claiming for themselves both exemption from and predominance of the misguided masses.

"As technological innovation authorises government to expand, the centralized state grew in size and importance." "Since then, government has assumed responsibility for more and more areas of social life: schooling, regulating wages and workings conditions, establishing standards for products of all sorts, and providing financial help to the elderly, the ill, and the unemployed." "In a mass society, power resides in large bureaucracies, leaving people in local communities with little control over their lives. For example, state officials mandate that local schools must meet educational standards, local products must be government-certified, and every citizen must remains extensive tax records. Although such regulations may protect and improvements social equality, they also force us to deal more and more with nameless officials in distant and often unresponsive bureaucracies, and they undermine the autonomy of families and local communities."

Mass society theory has been active in a wide range of media studies, where it tends to produce ideal visions of what the mass media such as television and cinema are doing to the masses. Therefore, the mass media are necessary instruments for achieving and maintaining mass societies. "The mass media administer rise to national culture that washes over the traditional differences that used to vintage off one region from another." "Mass-society theorists fear that the transformation of people of various backgrounds into a generic mass may end up dehumanizing everyone."

Sociologist C. Wright Mills made a distinction between a society of "masses" and "public".

As he tells: "In a public, as we may understand the term,

In a mass,