The Manipulative Potential of Mass Culture as a Tool for the Political Influence

Within the framework of the presented research, the question of the manipulative potential of mass culture as a tool of political influence is raised. The methodology of the work is built based on a combination of elements of comparative, structural and descriptive analysis. The author concludes that popular culture products, even if their creators have purely commercial motives, play the role of a tool for promoting meanings and values and, due to this, are a resource for regulating the behavior and perception of the target audience. The latter turns mass culture into a product of the functioning of the orientational level of the political system. The potential of works of popular culture to develop the effect of emotional contagion contributes to the fact that the impact of broadcast content becomes as wide as possible. The high degree of dependence of the content of cultural narratives on the context and the possibility of free commentary contributes to an increase in the options for their interpretation. The result is the loss by authors and customers of works of full control over the dissemination of transmitted meanings and their interpretation.