Some considerations on three notions of culture - the cultivated culture, the folk culture and the mass culture

Abstract

Nowadays, the cultivated culture or dominant culture no longer seems to be the expression of a totalizing singular. The mass media very often state that either the cultivated culture or the folk culture are culture. However some obstacles stand when attempting to an analysis comprising the historico-social determinations of both of them. On the other hand, the approaches to the mass culture constantly refer to its production relations system, i.e. the so much commented cultural industry. In this article the author tries to assemble some data on how these cultures are connected in specific historical moments, and emphasizes the reconfigurations of the games of distinction, exclusion and socio-cultural integration; the impact of the boom and development of cultural goods; the increasing porosity in the relation between the cultural mass production and the work of art which is unique.