An Influential Study Of Mechanical Reproduction On The Popularity Of Mass Culture Based On Visual Image

As people are surrounded by the atmosphere of modern and post-modern life,getting accustomed with daily newpaper, fast reading, net culture and digital image,they are not fully realizing the change and trend brought by modern technique andinnovation, taking blind to the fact that technique has overwhelmingly changed people’slife from many aspects with the unmatched strength. A German thinker WalterBenjamin, however, remains quite sober about the change brought by a so-called newtechnique of “mechanical reproduction” and conscious of its decisive influence onmodern capital society. What makes Benjamin different with his predecessors is, heclosely examines the course of history transiting from traditional society to modernCapitalism neglected by most people, predicting the influence symbolized bymechanical reproduction on human being’s visual art is subversive in determiningmodern people’s aesthetic taste, which directly leads to the appearance of mass culturebased on visual image.This paper, on the basis of Benjamin’s theory of mechanical reproduction, tries toanalyze the aesthetic charcters of mass culture and the influence of the mechanicalreproduction as a new technique on a visual world based on images, thus, re-assessingBenjamin and his theory as well as the significance of his theory on modern art andmass culture.