Mass Culture and Its Essence

Methodological ambiguity of researchers’ positions leads to the fact that mass culture is referred to different aspects of the phenomenon. In addition, it is rapidly transforming, acquiring new facets and properties within specific socio-cultural systems. The article shows that certain socio-cultural changes that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, led to the emergence of mass culture in Western civilization, as a result of the formation of mass and mass consciousness. Under the mass should be understood not only the degree of distribution of the product (a large number of something), and above all the focus on widespread consumption and low morale and aesthetic level of the product (including works of art).