masscult

American  

[mas-kuhlt] / ˈmæsˌkʌlt /

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.

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Etymology

Origin of masscult

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.

From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2021

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.

From Slate • Sep. 8, 2012

Later, modernism lost interest in images of rural labor; they were derided as sentimental masscult.

From Time Magazine Archive

He turned himself from a cartoonist into the Old Master of masscult, and from there became a Utopian environmentalist.

From Time Magazine Archive