High Brow and Low Brow Culture The Fall of American Popular Culture in the Contemporary Society
The emergence of the 20th century gave way to the development of highmass consumption of media goods and services, which occurred due to theproliferation of advertising and increased manufacturing of commercialgoods in the market. The advent of high mass consumption furthered withthe development of information technology, where computers and the Internetpaved the way for the "globalization" and easier and faster transmission ofinformation suitable for mass consumption. Throughout history, American popular culture is determined mainlythrough its entertainment industry. The need to advertise for surplusgoods by manufacturing companies allowed for the growth of the country'sentertainment industry, which in turn, dominated American culture andsociety. Thus, Americans have inevitably been linked to enter
" This differentiationbetween popular art as "low" art and fine art as "high" art illustrates howmoral degeneration resulted from the emergence of capitalism and high levelof consumerism. The worldwide spread and influence of American popular culture allover the world, however, led to the development of critiques that considerAmerican pop culture as decadent, what with the seemingly limitless andliberal way in which pop culture goods, products, and services are producedand consumed by the masses. Moreover, Frum (1999) analyzesthat these growing perceptions of the persistence of a "low brow" culturein American popular culture is a result of high "cultural authority"-thatis, the authority of the masses to take control and delimit themselves inproducing and consuming pop culture artifacts. This point is illustrated in the Michael Kammen's book, AmericanCulture, American Tastes (1999). " Moral degeneracy was the result of the prevalence of liberalism inthe expression of ideas in the production of pop culture artifacts. The ease in producing these artifactshave, according to the author, has developed the perception that Americanpop culture is 'morally degenerating' and/or illustration of "rottencapitalism. Theabsence of boundaries dictating what are products of 'good' or 'bad' tastein the information age led to the production and consumption of artifactsthat are far from the ideal notion of "fine art. tainmenticons and personalities shown on mass media-the phenomenon called as the'McDonaldization' of America-that is, the reign of consumer culture. This is reflected in Feigenbaum's (2003)analysis on the effects of American pop culture on the globalizationprocess ongoing in our society today. However, it is alsoimportant to note that with what is important in every culture is not its'highness' or 'lowness,' but its effectiveness in reflecting the values andsentiments of the people, of human society, for that particular time/periodin history. These studies and arguments against American popular culture showthat indeed, the localization and personalized nature of the culture hasled to its decadent nature in the 21st century. Reviews of Kammen's work reflect how the"localization" of American pop culture led to the development of degradingperceptions about it (Whitfield, 2001). In his study, he illustrated how theadvent of digital technology made it inevitable to produce pop culturegoods and services (artifacts).
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