Analyze The "Myth" In Mass Culture

The studies in "mass culture" used to deny its controlling function of ideology based on the critical point of the Frankfurt school, or emphasis the demotic consciousness, the conflict and negotiations that the demos participate in reception based on the demotic point of the Birmingham school. Barthes Roland develops a new method of his own. Using the view of "myth", the way mass culture transmits its information, he pays attention to the process that it construct social ideology and explains its latent function in our daily life.Based on the conception of "mass" and "mass culture" in today. We analyze Barthes's theory on "myth". Because of the Chinese special context, the native mass culture continually transmits information by "myth". Furthermore, its medium embodies the variety of material, and its ideology realizes the latent polyatomic of object.In the frame made by the upper theory, we analyze six case and pay attention to process in which "myth" works, then discover the ideologies under the natural and eternal appearance.In the end, tracing the affection of ideologies in reception, we find that they are reflection of homogeneous or heterogeneous power of the social mainstream. In reception, "myth" helps the mass culture transmit various ideologies more smoothly, and cover the reality. But in the same time as good aspect, "myth" consoles modernist spirit.