Popular Culture: Systematization Of Cultural Theories

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are characterized by the fact that mass culture has become the dominant means of influencing human civilization through the values, views, attitudes, and forms of expression it produces and proclaims. Popular culture is the culture of everyday life. A modern person is shaped by the images of popular culture that accompany them everywhere. Most contemporary European scholars emphasize the diversity of popular culture and its influence (both negative and positive), which cannot be underestimated. The paper attempts to systematize cultural studies on the phenomenon of popular culture. The author notes, on the one hand, the contradictory nature of existing theories on popular culture, and, on the other hand, emphasizes that this contradiction encourages scholars to carefully analyze this phenomenon and its impact on various aspects of human life.