Mass Culture of the Postmodern Epoch in Light of the Philosophy of Postmodernism

Abstract

Mass culture presents the most important phenomenon of society without which it becomes difficult to perceive the realities of the 21st century. The postmodern era has exerted influence on the qualities of the mass culture of the metamodern age. In order to understand its new characteristic features and forms of existence it is important to indicate the connection with the philosophy of postmodernism. The aim of the present article is to research the rhizomatic model of culture of philosophy of postmodernism and to reveal in it the bases of the transformation of mass culture in the metamodern epoch. The author systematizes the evaluations of 21st century mass culture, defines its peculiarities in the paradigm of the culture of the metamodern age with the use of rhizome-analysis as a scholarly approach. On the basis of comprehension of the rhizomatic model of culture in the philosophy of postmodernism the conclusion is arrived at: the ideas of decentration, multiplicity and plurality explain in many ways the new characteristic features of mass culture. It may be examined as an open system endowed with the creative potential of self-organization and acquiring new features in various sociocultural systems. The contradictory evaluations of contemporary mass culture in the 21st century make it possible to reveal both its negative (its entertaining character, commercialization, creation of virtual reality, manipulation of consciousness, a threat to national culture, etc.) and its positive characteristic features (its democratic quality, accessibility, mass character, etc.). Application of the concept of the rhizome as a method makes it possible to study the particularities of mass culture, to open up new verges of the phenomenon of the metamodern epoch. The transformation of mass culture expressed in synthesizing the elite and mass cultures, art and mundanity, the real and the ideal.