Mass Culture, New Capitalism, and Its Codes

Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine 

Abstract

This article discusses the expectations of global culture, connected and mediated by a constant force. This discussion is based on a review by three great thinkers on the topic. First, we review the key terms of media, the evolution of technology, and the advent of a globalized culture in its current state as advocated by the reflections of Marshall McLuhan. Then we place on the market aspects, which are the structural basis of the capitalist system and contemporary culture, based on the work of Richard Sennett. Therefore, we discuss the new relations of production and reproduction in this material and symbolic value system. However, it is, in this sense, in the symbolic aspects that we present our reading and interpretation of Jean Baudrillard's reflections. Finally, our paper proposes a synthesis of these three significant references to the social sciences, art, and culture about the new condition of the contemporary individual and their challenges in handling the new market requirements on the values of influential mass culture. We will seek a logical connection by analyzing Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (McLuhan 1964), Le système des objets (1968) and The Culture of the New Capitalism (Sennett 2007), which, in principle, are focused on contemporary society. Therefore, to better understand the intricacies of this society, which propagates democratic values and evokes social justice at all times, including in its arts and culture, we will end this essay by presenting social reality based on the complementary ideas of these three authors.