Modernism

'Beginning approximately at the end of the nineteenth century, modernism is the umbrella term we give to the way that human society responded to the changes that took place during the industrial revolution' (Creeber, G. 2009 pg.2). Modernism give hope for the future but the devastating effects of science and the industrial revolution led way for the first and second world war. These world wars did have one good out come and that was that technology advanced so much that new forms of media had come to be. Although this was good many saw the opposite of this 'offering both a celebration of the technological age and a savage condemnation of it ' (Creeber, G. 2009 pg.2).

 

The fact that new forms of media were become more available to the public and more main stream brought about a divided in art culture. High society or the ‘avant-garde’ believed that mass media such as the cinema or comics were dumbing down low society or as they were often referred to ‘mindless’ mass culture. The avant-garde believed that there forms of high class art were for the smart ad the elite who would not follow the masses but think about what they saw. An example of this would be the famous 'Frankfurt School' who believed that American mass culture was more like Fordism. this is based of the principle that Hennery Ford had created an assembly line who meant that cars could be created faster and cheaper which meant they were more available to the public but because they were masses produced they were all exactly the same. this lead The Frankfurt School to believed that all mass culture such as comics the news paper and many other forms of media were the exact same they were just being recycled and sold on again. this was done to keep the masses diluted in there own worlds and not think about what they are taking in. An example of this would be the hypodermic needle theory. Figure one shows a depiction of this.

Figure one

Bibliography

Creeber, G. (2009) DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in Ed. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media; Maidenstone, Open University Press