Ideology and Art: Theories of Mass Culture from Walter Benjamin to Umberto Eco (American University Studies)

Ideology and Art presents theories of mass culture of interest to political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, scholars of literature and general readers. It adapts the thought of five leading social theorists - the German writers of the 1930s: Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Bertolt Brecht - as well as the contemporary semiologists: Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco - to the problems of technology and culture in today's society. The book offers generous examples of the way photography and film, video and rock and roll, influence the way people see the world. It takes a new position on how art popularizes political figures, images and ideas.