A Study On Lowenthal’s Mass Culture Theory

Leo Lowenthal was an important scholar of the first generation of Frankfurt School.When people in the Institute of Social Research all paid close attention to mass culture theory, Lowenthal also made wide and deep research of mass culture from a unique perspective. But his theories have already been neglected for a long time. This article is aimed at elaborating systematically mass culture theories of Leo Lowenthal from the point of research object and method.This dissertation is composed of five parts: an introduction, a conclusion and a main text made up of three chapters.Chapter One introduces the theoretical background of Leo Lowenthal’s mass culture research, and makes an analysis of his thoughts origin.Leo Lowenthal’s theory of mass culture,with a close connection with critical theory,plays an important part in mass culture theory of Frankfurt School. Therefore, this chapter firstly introduces the reason why Frankfurt School studies mass culture and the main content of it. Secondly,makes a systematical research on Leo Lowenthal’s theory sources and origins. From the research, the author found that Lowenthal’s theory came mainly from the combination of the following aspects: critical theory, literary sociology,historical materialism, psychoanalysis, European humanism and American empiricism.Chapter Two firstly discriminates the basic conceptions of Lowenthal’s mass culture theory. Next, the article introduces main ideas of his study, unfolding mainly form longitudinal and transverse dimensions. On the one hand, the author "immerses into the history" to straighten out the development vein and debating history of mass culture. On the other hand,the author "faces the reality" to extensively analyzes popular biographies and novels. When facing up with developing mass culture in the history,Lowenthal criticized it and defended it at the same time. But mass culture in reality is not worth of sympathy, for they are normal, conservative, and deceptive to the public. In addition, the author stated two important assertions concerning with mass culture, that is, reverse psychoanalysis and distorted utopia.Chapter Three presents how Lowenthal examined literature and mass culture within the perspective of sociology and communication studies. The first segment discusses Lowenthal’s sociological interpretation of literature and mass culture. The second segment mainly illustrates Lowenthal’s views on mass media, and then presents his creative application of content analysis through case study.In the concluding part, the author concludes the unique significance of Lowenthal’s theory of mass culture and its enlightenment to modern China.