masscult

[mas-kuhlt]

noun

1. the forms of culture, as music, drama, and literature, as selected, interpreted, and popularized by the mass media for dissemination to the widest possible audience.

Word History and Origins

Origin of masscult¹

mass + cult(ure); coined by U.S. author and social critic Dwight Macdonald (1906-82) in his essay “Masscult and Midcult” (1960)

Example Sentences

On two other occasions she references “Candle in the Wind,” that masscult elegy that Elton John barely needed to rework to fit the fates of both Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana.

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That last concern — mass media imposing what Dwight Macdonald called “masscult” — is in one sense flipped today.

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Among the most famous of these came from Dwight Macdonald in a long Partisan Review essay from 1960 called “Masscult and Midcult.”

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In his book, “Masscult and Midcult,” Dwight MacDonald notes that “the great cultures of the past have been elite affairs.”

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If that seems like a good reason to go to the movies, it’s also a useful role for an art form that can’t compete with masscult on its own terms.

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