''The Uses of Literacy'' is a book written by

Richard Hoggart Herbert Richard Hoggart (24 September 1918 – 10 April 2014) was a British academic whose career covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with emphasis on British popular culture. Early life Hoggart was bor ...

and published in 1957, examining the influence of mass media in the United Kingdom. The book has been described as a key influence in the history of English and

media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

and in the founding of

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

Massification of culture

''The Uses of Literacy'' was an attempt to understand the changes in culture in Britain caused by "massification". It has been described as marking a "watershed in public perception of culture and class and shifted academic parameters". Hoggart's argument is that "the mass publicists" were made "more insistently, effectively and in a more comprehensive and centralised form today than they were earlier" and "that we are moving towards the creation of a mass culture, that the remnants of what was at least in part an urban culture 'of the people' are being destroyed".

The "drift"

In his study Hoggart looks at

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, popular magazines and newspapers and the movies and finds in all of these, "drift". He documents the break-up of the old, class culture, lamenting the loss of the close-knit communities and their replacement by the emerging manufactured mass culture. Key features of this are the tabloid newspapers, advertising, and the triumph of Hollywood. These "alien" phenomena have colonized local communities and robbed them of their distinctive features. Hoggart's attack is not on popular culture; rather it is on mass culture which is imposed from above. "Popular culture" being self-created has a fundamental integrity and evolves according to its own laws and dictates, not as a result of the mass media.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uses Of Literacy Sociology books 1957 non-fiction books Cultural studies literature Books about the media