Adorno, Williams And Fiske’s Mass Communication Study From The Theory Of Popular Culture

Popular culture and mass communication have a close relationship. Their interaction contributes significantly influence on our daily lives. Western academic has debated on popular culture for a long time, the three cultural studies scholars mentioned in this paper come from Germany, Britain and the United States, and these three countries are also the main places of western cultural studies. They have representative status in their respective academic fields: Adorno is the first-generation leader of the Frankfurt School, Germany; Williams is a famous Marxism cultural scholar and one of the founder of the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, the United Kingdom; Fiske is a famous American communication scholar, who is known as the founder of the contemporary Western popular culture studies. His theories typically reflect the cultural research steering to the post-modernism. As for the basic concept of popular culture in academic circles, we can get a glimpse from the theory of Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams and John Fiske. And based on popular culture theory, the concept of mass communication they proposed is also highly representative. In previous studies, has not yet had a similar comparative perspective.This paper attempts to comparatively analyze the core ideas of the three scholar’s popular culture theories, putting this as a starting point,and do some comparative analysis and document analysis. From this paper,the author try to explore the similarities and differences of the three scholars’mass culture theory. What are theirs core communication views? What is the relationship between theirs theories of mass culture and communication views? What are the implications to the development of contemporary Chinese media industry? Through analysis, we can see that the three scholars’ attitudes to the popular culture are entirely different:Adorno’s attitude is critical, feeling pessimistic about the future of popular culture. Williams’attitude is relatively objective.As for Fiske, he is very optimistic for popular culture.In addition to the differences in the attitude of popular culture,three scholar’s position is consistent,they all stand on the position of the masses.Through the study we can find the conclusion that their mass communication theory and the popular culture theory have the same strain. Finally, in view of the popular culture and mass communication are playing an important role in the contemporary Chinese society, this paper will draw on the theory of the three scholars, explore the development status such as movies, TV shows, pop music, and network culture of our country, and attempts to combine with the practice of mass media culture in modern China, to explore in what way the mass media could better convey a harmonious cultural value in the new era.