Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp.

321336, 1998
Copyright 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved
0047-2352/98 $19.00 1 .00

PII S0047-2352(98)00011-7

POPULAR CULTURE AS AN IDEOLOGICAL MASK:

MASS-PRODUCED POPULAR CULTURE AND THE REMAKING
OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE-RELATED IMAGERY

Michael J. Lynch
Department of Criminology
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida 33620

Lenny A. Krzycki
School of Social and Community Services
Criminal Justice Program
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403

ABSTRACT
This article examines the ability of modern forms of popular culture to capture and remake images of
crime. This examination contrasts the role of the production and consumption of popular culture in two
broad periods in the long history of popular culture: popular culture produced by the masses and
mass-produced popular culture. This distinction is used to examine: (1) the association between popular
culture and violence; (2) the transformation from the historical period dominated by popular culture
produced by the masses to the mass-produced popular culture era; and (3) an application of these arguments demonstrating the ability of mass-produced popular culture to remake modern forms of popular
culture produced by the masses. This latter process is illustrated using images generated by rap music
and gang movies. 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd

INTRODUCTION
Every culture has its own imaginative quality
and each historical period, like each culture, is
dominated by certain images.
Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 1963:8.

This article examines the ideological remaking of popular culture as it is produced and
transformed historically and under modern
circumstances. Of particular interest is the production and remaking of criminal justice-related
images, and the ways in which the popular cul321

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

ture industry uses its machinery to promote particular images of crime and justice. The focus in
this analysis is on how mass production is capable of capturing cultural trends or segments, altering their ideological messages, and transforming those trends and messages into commodities
(Adorno, 1991).
The analysis begins with the simple observation that modern forms of popular culture are
produced and consumed in a vastly different
context than popular cultural forms found in
earlier, preindustrial or premodern eras (i.e.,
prior to mass communication and mass production; Barbu, 1976; Brantlinger, 1983; Schroeder,
1980; Strinati, 1996). This simple observation,
however, is fraught with difficulties since it requires unifying several popular culture perspectives, rejects the modernist definition of popular
culture as a product of industrial society
(Bigsby, 1976), and dispenses with the associated cultural typologies (e.g., the differences
between popular, mass, low, high, and
folk cultures, to name a few). These divisions
are seen as both unproductive and responsible
for pejorative depictions of a variety of cultural
phenomena. First, these divisions fail to establish the various connections between forms of
culture production. Second, there has been a
strong tendency to overindulge in narrow analyses of modern popular culture and its meaning
to the exclusion of other forms of culture people
make in contemporary society, as well as the
meanings of those alternatives. Third, these divisions ignore history and, in the process, overemphasize modernity and postmodernism by
implying that popular culture is a contemporary phenomenon.
With these criticisms in mind, this popular
culture path is not followed. The first section of
this paper will lay out background assumptions.
This will require some definitional analysis as
well as a review of prior research in the area of
popular culture. Then the issue of violence and
popular culture as a theme that connects contemporary and traditional forms of popular culture is discussed. This is followed by a discussion in which explicit views of how popular
culture produced by the masses (what is viewed
as folk or traditional culture) is transformed into
mass-produced popular culture. Two examples

focusing on rap music and gang movies are employed to illustrate these contentions. In closing, the various observations made throughout
this paper will be placed in context in the discussion and conclusion.
Background Assumptions
What is popular? And, what is popular culture? As noted above, the term popular culture is rather loosely defined by many as a
product of modern, industrialized societies
and mass production itself. This definition implies that other types of societies (preindustrial,
preliterate) are incapable of producing popular
culture and instead contain rudimentary forms
of culture (i.e., folk culture). In addition, even
within industrial societies, certain shared forms
of culture are not viewed as popular culture
since they are not the product of mass production (e.g., low culture, mass culture, counterculture). These distinctions may or may not be useful for analyzing the different forms in which
culture appears (Strinati, 1996). What is clear
about these definitions, however, is that they
contain value judgments about the worthiness
of modern cultural forms over other forms of
culture production (Strinati, 1996:11).
In contrast to these definitions, a broader
definition of culture is something (rules, customs, behaviors) people create for a particular
purpose. Popular culture, then, is a set of rules,
customs, and behaviors that have some appeal
in a society to the extent that it is shared by a
definable segment of that society. This definition of popular culture opens up a vast array of
cultural phenomena for analysis, and does away
with the need to rely upon traditional definitions
that distinguished popular from other forms of
culture.
Doing away with the traditional definition
does not mean, however, that all forms of popular culture can be lumped together. Indeed,
some very important distinctions exist between
popular cultural forms. For example, one difference to capture is the observation offered by
mass culture theorists. This observation holds
that the bulk of contemporary, shared popular
culture is produced by a smaller and more concentrated segment of the population than in pre-

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

industrial societies (Lowenthal, 1957). Within

modern industrial society, the popular cultural
forms consumed are largely owned and controlled by a corporate sector, consisting of
mass-media1 entertainment industries (Adorno,
1991; Curtin, 1996). In this view, the main concern of mass-media entertainment industries is
not to produce a meaningful (i.e., communicative) form of culture created by the people
who consume it; rather, mass-media popular
culture industries create forms of popular culture that take the shape of a commodity. As
Strinati notes:
To put it simply . . . we could say that mass culture is popular culture which is produced by
mass production industrial techniques and is
marketed for a profit to a mass public of consumers. It is commercial culture, mass produced for a mass market. Its growth means that
there is less room for any culture which cannot
make money, which cannot be mass produced
for a mass market (1996:10).

Thus, the first type of popular culture isolated is

mass-produced popular culture.
What is unique about the situation under
which mass-produced popular culture is created? First, this type of popular culture necessitates the existence of an industrial sector, and
second, it requires that mass-producing popular
culture industries2 exist to design, produce, reproduce, market, and sell popular culture images as a commodity, though it should be noted
that not all mass-produced popular culture is
invented by this industrial segment. When industry cannot invent popular culture, it takes
public domain culture and markets it in a way
that transforms it into a commodity. The ability
of the popular culture industry to commodify
and sell popular culture, and its ability to employ mass communication to transmit its messages, have given it a virtual monopoly over the
production of popular culture in modern society
(Adorno, 1991). Mass medias monopolized
control of popular culture text and imagery3 has
a profound effect on the messages (ideology)
modern popular cultural forms contain and
transmit (Ohmann, 1996). These messages revolve around consumptive themes and acceptance of industrial culture (Henry, 1963). For

323

this reason, contemporary, mass-produced popular culture is also referred to as industrial popular culture to illustrate its connection with capitalist/corporate culture and ideology (Ewen,
1976).
The machinery that creates mass-produced
popular culture is powerful enough to take popular culture produced by the masses and alter,
eliminate, and even reverse its messages
(Henry, 1963). Strinati (1996) argues that mass
culture delivers people up to mass exploitation (p. 13), and begins to define social reality
for the mass public. It . . . tends to simplify the
real world and gloss over its problems. If problems are recognized, it treats them superficially
by presenting glib and false solutions (p. 15).
Adding to this argument, Ewen (1976) noted
that mass-produced popular culture transforms
culture generally, taking populace images and,
by reorganizing and repackaging, creates the
appearance of one dominant cultural pursuit
(i.e., mass production can create a hegemonic
culture; Held, 1980:77109).
It is important to note that mass-produced
popular culture is owned, produced, and controlled by a monopolized, mass-media entertainment industry. In this form, popular culture
is designed to be a mass-consumption commodity, not a cultural record or message, and may
often (though not always) lack the ideological
usefulness and/or applicability found in popular
culture texts and images produced by the
masses (Adorno, 1991). In order to examine the
ideological power of mass-produced popular
culture related to crime and justice, specific examples (from rap music and gang movies) of
how mass-produced popular culture can and has
been used to remake images of crime produced
by the masses will be provided. This discussion
illustrates how mass-produced popular cultures
remaking of popular culture produced by the
masses includes the ability to sanitize and homogenize messages, turning them into nonthreatening, nonuseful, mass-consumable products.
Many mass-produced popular culture images, especially those which relate to criminal justice,
involve the use of violent images.
Mass-produced popular culture is, in short, a
product of mass society. As part of mass society, this form of culture has a variety of nega-

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

tive characteristics and outcomes associated

with it. Mass-produced popular culture is part
of the disruptive process associated with urbanization and industrialization that erodes previously accepted social values, creating atomization and the possibility for mass propagandizing
or a climate in which elites can employ the mass
media in a systematic manner to exploit, manipulate, and persuade the people (Strinati, 1996:49).
Despite these observations, it is realized that
popular culture has not always been shaped by
the influence of capitalist/corporate culture. In
earlier historical eras, there were no industries
designed to produce or sell culture on a universal level (Lally, 1980), and popular culture production was much more decentralized. In such
societies, popular culture was a vehicle that expressed popular beliefs, values, and the history
of a people (Henry, 1963; Hobsbawm, 1980;
Schroeder, 1980). In this view, the primary purpose of popular culture produced by the masses
is to act as a means of communication, and as a
collective or cultural memory mechanism.
During this precommodification era, popular
culture was, as Geertz (1975) asserts, truly consumed by the society that produced it. The decentralized nature of popular culture production
allowed the populace to employ popular culture
as a medium of communication and to control
its content, and added stability to primitive
culture (Henry, 1963:9).4 In the pre-mass-produced popular culture era, everyone had the
ability to participate in a nations or regions
oral traditions (including religion), and most
had access to shaping a societys popular culture images through the small-scale production
of handicrafts (Schroeder, 1980).
Even in contemporary, industrial societies,
not all widely-shared culture can be said to be
mass produced. Behavioral adaptations with
widespread appeal that are not mass produced
include body piercing, self-tattooing, certain
forms of dress, and activities such as midgetbowling. These popular culture forms seem to
have much in common with preindustrial popular culture. Most certainly, while these behaviors, rules, and customs exist in an industrialized
nation, their form is preindustrial to the extent
that these cultural forms are not produced for
mass consumption, and some, like Fiske (1989,

1993), argue that their existence should be

taken as examples of resistance.
In short, this understanding of popular culture reflects the perspective offered by
Schroeder (1980), who argued in favor of developing a long history of popular culture. This
view stands in direct opposition to the more
usual conception of popular culture as a product
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
(Schroeder, 1980:3). In addition, it is important
to take Lallys (1980:2045) caution, that it is
difficult to draw distinctions between folk,
mass, and elite forms of popular culture traditionally discussed in the popular culture literature, seriously (for an opposing point of view,
see Bigsby, 1976). Such distinction seems appropriate as well, given Barbus (1976:43) observation that what differentiates forms of popular culture is the process of modernization.
Accounting for these claims and observations, two broad eras in the history of popular
culture production and consumption are used
for distinguishability: (1) popular culture produced by the masses5; and (2) mass-produced
popular culture or industrial popular culture.
Popular culture produced by the masses refers
to texts (oral, written, and behavioral) and images produced and distributed by people in a
culture/society who lack access or connection to
a centralized mechanism for the production and
distribution of popular culture as a commodity.
In contrast, mass-produced popular culture or
industrialized popular culture refers to a monopolized popular culture industry that owns,
produces, and controls the dissemination of
mass-produced texts and images in a manner
purposely designed to produce commodities for
mass consumption. This distinction includes the
observations of Jules Henry (1963:9), who
noted, The contrast between primitive cultures assumption of a fixed bundle of wants
and our cultures assumption of infinite wants is
one of the most striking . . . differences between
the two cultural types.
It is believed that the distinction between
these two types of popular culture is important
for a variety of reasons. Among these is the implication for assessing the effect of each form of
popular culture on modern society. The specific
examples examined here are criminal justice-

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

related images. Before engaging the reader in

this analysis, however, there is a need to discuss
the issue of violence in popular culture, because
here, too, some common and unwarranted assumptions concerning mass-produced popular
culture are encountered.
Popular Culture and Violence
It has been widely assumed and argued both
in the media and by academics that many forms
of modern popular culture gain their popularity
from the violence they depict. At times, it seems
that the more violent a popular culture form is,
the more likely it is to be consumed, and the
more popular it becomes in modern society. In
sum, violence appears to be a major ingredient
in creating commodified forms of modern popular culture and in fueling the popular culture
consumption-production cycle.
The close association between modern popular culture and violence has led many people to
decry the ills of popular culture (Carpenter,
1973; McLeod, 1991). In particular, there has
been great concern with the negative effects violent, modern popular-culture forms may produce. Some critics argue that the violent images
portrayed via popular culture cause a disintegration in the moral fabric of modern society, and
that if that is allowed to continue, society will
soon go the way of Rome (Greeson and Williams, 1987; Sherman and Dominick, 1986).
Indeed, it is difficult to deny that there appears to be something unhealthy about a society
that feeds its minds and imaginations on the violence, destruction, and degradation common to
many forms of modern mass-produced popular
culture. In response to these critiques of modern
popular culture, however, it should be noted
that violence and destruction are not new popular culture themes. Historically, there have always been violent, destructive, and degrading
images in a variety of popular culture formats.
In the modern world, however, there appears to
be ever more violent images as well as greater
access to these images (e.g., video movies, video
games, the Internet), though possibly none as
personal or realistic as Christians being thrown
to the lions. In addition, partially due to new
technology, images of violence tend to appear

325

increasingly graphic and real (e.g., new graphics application such as the MMP chip). The
widespread availability of comic books, television, movies (in the theater and at home on the
VCR), video games, radio, magazines and newspapers, and, most recently, the Internet all contribute to the increased quantity of and accessibility to contemporary violent popular culture.
In short, the unhealthy, violent aspect some
critics see in modern popular culture is not simply the result of the images transmitted, since
one could argue that the images found in popular culture have remained somewhat constant
historically (Krzycki, 1993; Morongui and Newman, 1987). Rather, the unhealthiness of modern popular culture is that its violent images are
often devoid of a messageor at least devoid of
a message with an ideological content produced
by the masses. In other words, with respect to
the production of modern popular culture, it
seems safe to say that the message no longer
seems to matter5 as much as the economic viability of mass-produced popular cultural imagery (Adorno, 1991; Bennett, 1982; Brookeman,
1984). As Henry (1963:67) noted, The law of
competition and monetization makes clear the
fact that unbridled competition among products
increases monetization, saps values, and imperils the foundations of our society. Indeed, the
intent of mass-produced popular culture is not
to produce images that transmit a message with
meaning, thus preserving culture; rather, the
intent is to create images that sell, whether or
not they have meaning (Adorno, 1991; Henry,
1963).6 Thus, it could be argued that the pervasive, violent content of mass-produced popular
culture identified by its critics is greatest where
the goal is wealth. Indeed, there exists great potential for the accumulation of wealth through
the production and distribution of violent, destructive, and degrading images found in massproduced and mass-consumed modern popular
culture formats.
Whether or not scholars agree there is something troubling about the production of modern
popular culture, they can still be fascinated with
it as a form of communication-entertainment
ideology. Modern popular culture is truly incredible in many ways. In particular, and of specific interest to this article, is the capability of a

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

modern, corporate-owned and monopolized

popular culture industry to mass produce, manipulate, and remake popular cultures ideological images initially produced by the daily activities of the public. That is, mass-produced popular
culture has the ability to take and remake the
images, ideology, and stories that once served
as the foundation for meaningful popular culture produced by the masses (e.g., see Williams,
1976). Some additional background is needed
before this claim makes complete sense and before the logic of this argument can be applied
more concretely. Therefore, attention is turned
to the ways in which mass-produced popular
culture remakes or recodes images.

REMAKING POPULAR CULTURE

It would be easy to argue that at the current
time, popular culture appears to be out of control (possibly in more ways then one). This
statement is particularly true when restricting
the frame of reference to the definition of popular culture offered in this article. Doing so, one
could argue that popular culture is out of control to the extent that it is no longer in the control of the masses who once produced it. This
claim is probably not terribly controversial, but
is believed to be enlightening in a number of
ways. To understand why this view is enlightening, it is necessary to take a brief step back in
history.
Historically, popular culture emerged as a
form of communication that was produced,
owned,7 controlled, consumed, and transmitted by the masses (Williams, 1976). Here, the
masses are understood as the general populace,
that largely consisted of illiterate, agrarian, nonwealthy people. Thus, the images contained in
popular culture produced by the masses reflected some shared form of social consciousness (Hobsbawm, 1980). This consciousness
centered on a number of different items and varied across cultures and historically.
Clearly, in earlier times, popular culture was
not simply a form of entertainment, as is often
the case today (though it often did sometimes
serve to entertain in earlier historical periods;

Brantlinger, 1983). Popular culture produced by

the masses was a means of communicating and
preserving history, shared myths, cultural symbols, and ideological messages. It was an oral
history of sorts. Consequently, popular culture
messages produced by the masses often contained stories about injustice, social conflicts,
and the termination of oppression as experienced by the mass populace (Hobsbawm, 1980).
In this form, as a message about the historic
(and sometimes heroic) struggles of a people,
popular culture produced by the masses was an
intense ideological and cultural force.8 As an intense ideological and cultural force, popular
culture could become a rallying point, a tool,
around which, for example, continued resistance
to oppression could be forged (Hobsbawm, 1980).
The intensity of the force of resistance found in
popular culture has fueled generations of popular struggle, and in many societies popular culture continues to serve this purpose (see, for example, Leon Uriss historical novel on Ireland,
Trinity [Uris, 1977]).
It was with the great advance of civilization that popular culture began to be changed
and altered, or, more precisely, manipulated and
perverted (Lowenthal, 1957). Governments discovered many ways to gain control of popular
culture media and, consequently, altered and
fragmentized what consumers could access.
Once this was accomplished, popular culture of
the masses, a peoples popular culture,9 a
popular culture that spoke of resistance against
injustices and served to inform the public of
these issues, began to dwindle and disappear. In
effect, the ruling classes, comprised of politically and economically powerful people, learned
to manipulate popular culture and its images
and messages in order to turn it against its creators (Adorno, 1991). In order to completely
control the messages, it was necessary to control the medium of popular cultures transmission. As a result, popular culture was, and continues to be, increasingly expropriated from the
masses, reinvented, and imbued with messages
unconnected to real-life situations. In this climate, popular culture has been transformed
from a social construct created by the people, to
one owned, controlled, and shaped by those
with political and economic power (the state

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

and the corporate sector). The latter groups

were able to use their resources not only to
transform popular culture, but to monopolize
ownership of popular cultures transmission.
The most extreme example of this process occurs in fascist or totalitarian states (Strinati,
1996). Yet, this process is also evident in free
market economies and in the Americanization
of mass culture (Strinati, 1996:2131).
In its new mass-produced form,10 popular
culture could continue to show and depict violence, brutality, struggle (in the forms of sexism, racism, poverty, discrimination), and resistance; however, it was able to do so only to the
extent that the meaning of these depictions and
stories were changed. This process of transforming popular culture not only removed the
populace from the production of popular culture; it removed populace-generated messages
as well.11 In short, newfound state and elite control of popular culture functioned to minimize
the potent and popularly constructed images
found in popular culture produced by the
masses. In this way, popular culture has been
sanitized through its disassociation with the
masses and its newly constructed affiliation
with the ruling elite. In turn, ruling elites (both
from the state and the economically powerful)
who controlled the production of popular culture stripped it of much of its mass meaning and
ideology and substituted a less threatening message. The images of mass-produced popular
culture could retain its depictions of violence,
but not the meaning of those acts as constructed
by the public. In short, popular culture remained
popular only to the extent that it continued to
be consumed by the masses on a broad scale. Its
control and production was centralized with the
ruling elite. When the masses began to lose control of popular culture production, they also began to lose control of a very important mechanism for expressing and receiving meaning, as
well as the ability to sustain a cultural ideology
and a collective memory and consciousness
(Adorno, 1991; Hobsbawm, 1980).
This depiction of popular culture is somewhat unusual, and along with Henry, the authors agree that such a view inverts typical assumptions because it makes culture subservient
to industry. As Henry explains,

327

This formulation stands on its head the anthropological clich that the function of culture is to
satisfy a relatively fixed bundle of known
needs, for in America, as elsewhere in the industrialized cultures, it is only the deliberate
creation of need that permits the culture to continue. This is the first phase of the psychic revolution of contemporary life (1963:19; emphasis
in original).

In sum, in contemporary society, the apparent complete control governments and the economically powerful exert over popular-culture
forms is the culmination of a long historical
process (Adorno, 1991; Schroeder, 1980). This
process centered on the deconstruction of popular culture produced by the masses, and the reinscription of images with ideologically superficial meanings (Strinati, 1996:22324). Popular
culture images that once included themes such
as resistance, rebellion, dissatisfaction, and so
forth, have been taken over, converted, and controlledideologically emptied of popular meanings produced by the masses. Popular culture
becomes, under such circumstances, a massproduced, mass-consumed commodity devoid
of widespread social meaning and relevance
(Henry, 1963). The violence that once depicted
strugglethat once had meaningis now simply a marketing strategy: it has become violence, pure, simple, and isolated from its mass
ideological significance.
Numerous examples exist of this process as
it occurs in modern society (Henry, 1963). Two
such examples are sufficient to illustrate the
contentions set forth above. Thus, let us examine how mass-produced popular culture has
been employed to empty rap music and gang
culture (via the gang movie) of their meanings
as produced by the masses (for summaries related to cinema, television, advertising, and pop
music, see Strinati, 1996:22935).
Rap Music
A clear example of the ability of mass-cultural industries to sanitize popular culture messages can be found in the development of contemporary or popular rap music. The following
section of this article provides a brief history of
the evolution of rap as a modern form of com-

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

modified popular culture. This review features

the transition of rap music from a form of popular culture produced by the masses to mass-produced popular culture. Implicit in this transition
is the corporate process of commodity production and its ability to transform the message
contained within rap music.

The history of rap. In the not so distant past,

rap music emerged in the United States as the
story and voice of the streets. Rap was originally not the story of just any street, however;
generally it was the story of life on the streets in
large U.S. urban areas inhibited by low-income
minority groups. In this context, rap music presented itself as a form of popular culture able to
present society with especially engaging examples of the tension and conflict existing between
dominance and resistance in American society
(Roberts, 1991:141). Stanley (1992:vi) adds
that rap music had the capability of serving as a
form of popular culture that explored tensions
between Black and White, male and female, in a
direct and explicit way: Rap, more than any
other music genre, has dissected, commented
upon, and reflected back to us our culture with
startling clarity.
Early forms of rap music produced and consumed on the street echoed many of the qualities found in much earlier forms of popular culture produced by the masses (those created
before mass-produced popular culture dominated). Early in its history, rap music transmitted stories and images of resistance, heroes, and
struggles while simultaneously serving as a
form of entertainment (Hobsbawm, 1980). Not
all rap was resistance oriented; lyrics about sex,
violence, and love were also quite apparent
(Krzycki, 1993). These latter themes had a purpose and meaning closely associated with and
connected to the lives of rap music producers
and consumers. In short, it can be said that the
forms of violence and degradation depicted by
street rappers reflected their cultural milieu. In
original street rap, depictions of violence and so
on were not contrived, as is often the case today, simply to make a profit. In fact, very early
in its development, rap was not for sale; it was
an oral tradition isolated from the commodities

market, and the stories it told had meaning to

those who wrote, heard, and repeated its lyrics.
Contemporary street rap originated around
1976 (Stanley, 1992:xv), yet its birth and emergence as a form of music went unnoticed by
most Americans for a number of years. Everyday reference to the term rap as the culture
of clothes, slang, dances, and philosophies
sprang up in the 80s (George, 1989:40). It was
at this point that the music industry began to
transform rap into mass-produced popular culture that fit modern requirements of middleclass consumptive markets (Strinati, 1996:236
38). It is also at this point in the history of the
transformation of rap from popular culture produced by the masses to mass-produced popular
culture, that some key differences between
these two eras can be isolated. For example,
with few financial resources and consequently
no musical instruments to speak of, 1970s
rappers were restricted in their choice of musical expression. Rap consisted of vocals, and the
use of the voice to represent instruments and to
keep a beat. Socially rejected items such as
empty plastic pails and scrap wood became musical tools. As a result, rap was in many ways
crude (i.e., by virtue of not having access to
refined musical instruments), but true to its
ancestral roots.12 Yet, in its early street form,
rap music represented the stark realities of life
in modern American society as experienced by
minorities. Makeshift instruments seemed to fit
an uncertain lifestyle and daily existence characterized by limited resources.
While the story of street rap is interesting
and useful for highlighting its transformation
into mass-produced popular culture, raps historical roots seem to predate the 1970s. In fact,
rap can be traced from the centuries-old traditions of West African storytellers (Stanley,
1992). There is great irony here; while noncommodified rap is known for highlighting the existence of conflict in society, its antecedent was
a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century West African
societal figure known as a griot. The griot,
through the tradition of West African storytellers, challenged social transgressors to listen to
the will of the people (Krzycki, 1993). Abusive songs against ordinary individuals [were]
sometimes directly used as means of social

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

pressure, enforcing the will of public opinion

(Stanley, 1992:xvi).
The tradition of the griot was reinvigorated
during the 1930s and 1940s with the emergence of
calypso music. As a form of storytelling, calypso
connects Caribbean, rap, and West African traditions. According to White (1993), the meaning of
the word calypso in the Caribbean is like a
newspaper. White notes that calypso rappers like
Growling Tiger, the Mighty Sparrow, or Lord
Kitchner would get a record out to comment on an
event and in many cases [would be able to do it]
faster than the newspaper could hit the streets.
White reports that Growling Tiger, a Black calypsonian man, cut a record in 1939 entitled Try and
Join a Labor Union, and explained that this song
was talking about black people throughout the
Caribbean. White argued that Growling Tiger
and others were able to communicate a message
that the ordinary manthe man on the street
couldnt hope to make in a letter to the editor of
the local newspaper. Communicating this message to the public via calypso music enabled
them to leap out on the street with a record that
would seize the popular imagination right away
and all of a sudden its on the agenda for everybody. Growling Tiger was making the point that
black people have trouble getting into labor
unions and, woo, everybody knows about itit is
the talk of the town. White sums up his view
by asserting that the critical significance of rap
is that it takes the percussion of everyday life
to say, Listen, stop and listen to whats going
on around you.
In essence, during its initial phase of development, rap was a form of popular culture produced by the masses. As a result, its messages
accurately reflected the perspective of its producers and consumersthe populacewho
had some direct control and connection to this
musical form. In the early years, production and
consumption of rap occurred on the streets reflected in the music. Life and popular culture
were, in many ways, unified and were mirror
images of one another. As a form of popular
culture, rap music was connected, or had connectedness. This connectedness was soon to
dissipate, as rap was made popular and consumed on a wider basis while taken over by the
mass-produced popular culture industry.

329

The transformation of rap. When rap music

first began to be aired by select, inner-city radio
stations, it was largely ignored by record labels
and corporate sponsors. Rap was viewed as a
passing fad (a label often applied to modern
popular cultural forms before they are mass produced and mass marketed). Given its select audience, it was believed that rap appealed to only
a small segment of the population. Further, this
portion of the population was viewed as lacking
the resources necessary to be a major consumer
force.
Despite corporate Americas initial negative
appraisal of its virtues and value (as culture and
a commodity), however, raps popularity increased drastically during the 1980s, an era accompanied by Reaganism, cutbacks, and social
welfare safety nets with gaping holes. This coincided with the spread of rap from the streets
and clubs of Harlem and the Bronx to downtown clubs with a hip white clientele . . . [and
by] 1982, the rap form was gaining in seriousness, variety, and complexity. . . . By 198384,
rap had become The Next Big Thing in the
mainstream media (Stanley, 1992:xxiii). As
raps popularity grew, record companies began
to cut deals with rappers; corporate America increasingly borrowed the rhythm of rap (but not
its messages) to construct corporate jingles and
commercials that communicated consumption
images (e.g., McDonalds). This transformation
marked the end of raps innocencethe end of
rap as popular culture produced by the public
and the emergence of rap as mass-produced
popular culture.
In sum, over the past decade corporate
America has taken over, transformed, and monopolized rap. It has been seen, firsthand, how a
form of popular culture produced by the masses
has been turned into mass-produced popular
culture. The extent of this takeover is becoming
increasingly visible as some rappers refuse new
contracts with recording companies, decline to
make new albums, or even refuse to go on tour
until they are afforded greater creative input
into the process of producing rap music. Some
of the producers of rap have, it seems, discovered how the messages of their words and lyrics
are being defused and used for purposes outside
of their control. As noted by Ice-T after the re-

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

lease of a rap album illustrative of police brutality against inner-city Blacks, You cant be part
of the system and make music against the system. Pretty soon the systems going to check
you (1993:c:3). Consequently, some rappers
have sought to resist this trend by withdrawing
their intellectual and performance labor from
the market place. As noted by Stanley,
rappers are more aware than anyone that the
black cultural style sells in white America: Air
Jordans, Arsenio Hall, Spike Lee, and all that.
Still, young blacks bear the brunt of societys
coercion. And while they [the cops] treat my
group like dirt, say M. C. Ren of NWA in
the song 100 Miles and Runin, their whole
fuckin family is wearing our t-shirts (Stanley,
1992:xxvi).

In sum, rap music provides one example of

the ways in which (1) popular culture produced
by the public has been converted into mass-produced popular culture; (2) mass-produced popular culture has been used to ideologically manipulate, strip, and neutralize messages from
popular culture produced by the masses; and (3)
how the conflict between those who own massmedia production facilities and those who produce the raw material for popular culture (e.g.,
the rappers) takes shape. Another example of
how mass-produced popular culture manipulates messages (with quite different connotations) is found in the gang movie.

Gang Movies
To understand how a politically and economically monopolized movie industry is able
to manipulate and redefine the real dynamics
surrounding the issue of gangs, gang culture,
and gang ideology, it is necessary to first review
some current scholarly literature about gangs.
Once this material has been briefly reviewed,
one should then be able to turn to an analysis of
the ways in which mass-produced popular culture, specifically gang movies, act to neutralize
the potent ideological dimension of gangs.
Recent studies of gangs and ganging phenomena (Bourgois, 1995; Esbensen and Huizinga, 1993; Jankowski, 1991; Katz, 1988; Moore,

1991; Padilla, 1992) reveal that gangs do not

develop out of thin air, nor out of malicious motives. Instead, critical analysis of the development of gangs and their organizational makeup
reveals that the infrastructure of gangs is based
upon a rich subcultural, ideological, and economic heritage. Gangs are not often thought of
in these termsas ideologically and economically significant forms of culture. Further, these
images of gangs are quite different than those
most likely to be encountered in the news media, in mass-produced forms of popular culture
such as the gang movie, or even in commodified
rap music (e.g., popular music videos). Before
commenting further on mass-produced popular
cultures perversions of gangs, it is necessary to
further flesh out the discussion of gangs.
The majority of recent scholarly studies of
gangs argue that gangs have clearly specified
goals and highly structured internal organizational features. In this view, gangs are seen as
highly complex, tightly structured organizations. Some researchers have gone as far as to
compare the organizational structure found in
gangs to those characteristics of legitimate businesses and government enterprises (Jankowski,
1991). College and university fraternities and
sororities provide another organized, structured
group appropriate to compare to gangs.
As organizations, gangs are part of the larger
society. More immediately, however, they belong to communities. Gangs are attached to
communities and often help solve community
problems. Examples include the policing of
low-income areas in which they are most prevalent and the provision of community services
(Jankowski, 1991). Community members often
rely upon gangs for community liaison; many
community members believe that gangs provide
added safety in their communitiesthe type of
safety police do not always provide in lowincome communities (Jankowski, 1991).
As part of their organizational structure,
gangs have well-defined goals and have developed plans and procedures to accomplish them.
Like legitimate businesses and organizations,
the primary goals of gangs are economic. Gangs
seek to provide opportunities for members to be
financially secure and to generally meet the
needs of members and their families, and have

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

been known to make no-interest loans to the

families of gang members to meet financial
needs (Jankowski, 1991). The ultimate goal of
gangs, then, is to provide security (and even
recognition) for their members (Grose and
Groves, 1993).
If the activities noted above were the only
behaviors gangs engaged in, every community
in America would be clamoring for a gang.
Thus, it should be noted that violence is also a
part of gang life. For some gangs, violence provides a right of passagean initiation. For a
few gangs, violence (i.e., death) is the only way
out. (These are defined as blood inblood out
gangs. A murder gets you in; your death is the
only way out.) Violence is not, however, the allconsuming motivating force behind most gangs.
Further, the violence that most gangs engage in
is not indiscriminate; rather, it is well targeted,
having defined goals and purposes (Shakur,
1993). Thus, while violence is often found in
gangs, particularly in initiation rights (Jankowski, 1991), gangs do not often revolve
around the use of violence. This dimension of
the gang is widely misunderstood in the media
and overtly stressed in mass-produced popular
culture formats.
If gangs are not organized around violence,
what values and needs are they organized
around? Above, it has already been implied that
gangs are organized around security and survival needs. Gangs arise in community contexts
characterized by a scarcity of resources and legitimate opportunities.13 Given this context, the
gang may be viewed as a rational organizational
response to inherent structural (violent) impediments found in American society. The structural impediments of capitalism are especially
acute in impoverished communities, limiting
and structuring the choices people can make
(Groves and Frank, 1993). Thus, membership in
a gang becomes a viable alternative to the forms
of economic stagnation and marginalization that
a conforming or legitimate lifestyle might
bring.
Much mass-produced popular culture on the
gang emphasizes male participation and male
roles. Contrary to these popular images, recent
gang-related research (Esbensen and Huizinga,
1993) reports that females comprise up to 45

331

percent of some gangs (see also Campbell,

1991, and Fagan, 1990, who report female gang
participation rates as high as 33 percent). Female gang member involvement in violence,
however, appears to be minimal (Esbensen and
Huizinga, 1993), and, while females are more
involved in gangs than is commonly assumed
and depicted, the overall number of youths involved in gangs is relatively low. In addition,
gang membership appears to be transitory. Typically, individuals are not lifetime members of
gangs (Esbensen and Huizinga, 1993:58183).
Mass-produced popular culture images of
gangs (both in movies and rap videos) generally
appear to contradict each and every scholarly
observation made about gangs reviewed above.
Gang movies in particular (though the news media and rap videos also display false images of
gangs and gang activity; Krzycki, 1993) emphasize (1) the graphic nature of gang violence, (2)
extensive drug use, (3) discriminatory violence,
(4) apparent disorganization within gangs, (5)
peripheral female involvement, (6) gangs as
roving bands of hoodlums, (7) gangs as feared
community members, (8) gang members as
color-wearing fanatics, and (9) gang members
solely as predators, to name a few themes. While
such gangs exist, rarely are other important facets of gang life reviewed for the moviegoing audience, such as (1) the services they provide to
the community, (2) their provision of security
and self-worth to members, (3) the context in
which gangs emerge, and (4) their rational organizational structure.
In sum, the brief analysis presented here
makes it clear that mass-produced images of
gangs, gang activity, and gang members contain
sexy, saleable images of gangs and gang behavior. These mass-produced images neutralize
the ideological importance of the gang as a cultural and rational adaptation to life in capitalist
America (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1994). Massproduced popular-cultural images of gangs
define gangs, and as a result gang members, as
illogical, crazy, and unpredictable. Since the
majority of actors in these movies are often minorities, a more generalizable stereotype is generated (i.e., generally, minorities are illogical,
crazy, unpredictable). What is overlooked in
mass-produced popular culture is that even

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M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

gang members spend most of their time conforming (or at least not committing crimes,
particularly crimes of violence). No doubt a
film about conformity, while truthful, would be
boring and a tough sell, and mass-produced
popular culture is not created with the intent of
preserving culture, or for the purpose of passing
on stories that conserve heroes and struggles in
the collective memory of the people (Hobsbawm, 1980). Mass-produced popular culture
changes existing forms of culture and creates new
forms of culture that can be produced, sold, and
consumed.14 It is, above all else, a commodity.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This article asserts that the functional role of
popular culture has changed greatly since its inception. In discussing popular cultures history,
this article has referred to two major types of
popular culture: (1) popular culture that is produced by the masses or the people who consume it, and (2) popular culture produced by the
popular culture industry.
Popular culture produced by the masses appears to be most influential as oral history, and
in historical periods where the production of
popular culture is largely influenced by informal, decentralized means of communicating
stories, entertainment, myths, and legends produced and consumed by the people. The second
form of popular culture discussed (mass-produced popular culture) was described as a form
of popular culture that is produced and disseminated via the control of a highly centralized political and corporate sector. Mass-produced
popular culture is systematically distributed
with the intent to entertain and to create a profit.
Thus, each type has a different purpose, contains different messages, and is constructed and
consumed differently.
The notion of mass-produced popular culture
also implies mass consumption of its images, or
at least the production of images designed for
mass consumption. Mass-produced popular culture further implies that images are often superficial and trivial and have no real connection to
the day-to-day lives of its consumers. Massproduced popular culture serves no overt pur-

pose except to entertain. Its covert message,

however, is to commodify images to urge consumers to buy products displayed via various
popular culture forms. Another covert function
of mass-produced popular culture is to stifle images and messages of a popular culture produced by the masses that communicate information which enables its consumers to resist and
react to inequality and injustice. This statement
holds true even where mass-produced popular
culture employs images, stories, and legends
created by the masses. In the process of turning
popular culture produced by the public into
mass-produced popular culture, something
very important happensthe publics messages
and images are lost or reformed, changed into
messages and images that better represent the
interests of the mass producers.
The two major forms of popular culture reviewed here are not exhaustive or mutually exclusive by any means. First, it is quite possible
that there are other forms of popular culture,
other ways of defining or segmenting popular
culture that are not touched upon here. This
analysis has only examined a distinction among
forms of popular culture based upon control of
its production, distribution, and consumption.
Second, there indeed appears to be some historical overlap between these two forms of popular
culture, and there are clearly eras in this overlap
where one or the other form dominates (e.g.,
transition eras, emergent eras, transition era
dominated by popular culture produced by the
masses, transition era dominated by mass-produced popular culture, etc.; Williams, 1976).
There are several lessons to be taken from these
observations.
Since control over the production and distribution of popular culture varies, analysis of the
meanings attributed to popular culture needs to
be carefully assessed and qualified. To provide
a criminal justice-related example, let us briefly
turn to an examination of Hobsbawms analysis
of the oral and written popular culture of the
bandit produced by the masses (Hobsbawm,
1980), and Newmans analysis of mass-produced
and consumed popular-culture images of comic
book crime fighters (Newman, 1993).
Both Hobsbawms and Newmans analyses
quite clearly pinpoint the ideological messages

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

associated with popular culture stories constructed about crime fighters. Both studies reveal the ideological imagery producers of popular culture create. The difference between these
studies, then, is who the producers of popular
culture are in each case. Newmans study, for
example, looks at ideological messages passed
on by a comic book character.15 Therefore, the
ideological messages that are examined belong
to those who control the mass-produced images
of popular culture heroes. The ideological images created by the modern mass-media entertainment industries may certainly have an effect
on the way the public thinks about issues such
as crime and justice, and Newman certainly has
a valid point to make by studying this form of
modern popular culture. One cannot assume,
however, that the ideological images in massproduced forms of popular culture necessarily
represent what the people think, since they do
not directly produce these images; they are
merely its consumers. How do these observations compare to those that can be made about
Hobsbawms study?
Hobsbawms work examines popular culture
heroes, both real and imagined, produced (and/
or in some cases embellished) by the masses.
Thus, the ideologies exposed by Hobsbawm
represent something very different than the ideologies Newman discovers in his analysis of
mass-produced popular culture. In short, Hobsbawm is primarily focusing on images, stories,
and heroes created or produced by the masses,
while Newman concentrates on images, stories,
and heroes created or mass-produced by a popular culture industry and consumed by the masses.
The limited observations and comparisons
made above should not be taken as implying
that either Newman or Hobsbawm is wrong in
their focus. These observations merely imply
something about the generalizability of the research performed by each of these scholars.
Both Newmans study of mass-produced popular culture and Hobsbawms study of popular
culture produced by the masses are historically
qualified or limited in application. Newman cannot address popular culture produced by the
masses, while Hobsbawm cannot address massproduced popular culture. This is an important
distinction to make, one which can yield signifi-

333

cant clues about the meaning of popular culture

in any given era. As criminal justice researchers
become more immersed in popular culture studies,
they would do well to pay heed to this difference.
Most certainly, these historically qualified observations are at odds with the proclivity of criminologists to generate general theories of crime or their
search for generalizable theories of justice.
In sum, it can be said that popular culture is
produced within given and definite historically
and culturally specific contexts. Consequently,
much of what is said about popular culture must
be conditioned by qualifiers that delineate these
dimensions of social context (Mills, 1959). There
are some very general observations, however, that
can be made about popular culture when examining the historical progression evident in the
transformation of popular culture produced by
the masses to mass-produced popular culture.
Historically the masses were, it seems, freer
to produce and retain control of popular culture
images prior to the emergence of a mass-media
entertainment industry, which took over this
production function. In contrast, mass-produced
popular culture can be much more freely accessed and consumed by the public, given the
widespread opportunities to do so, especially in
a heterogeneous, geographically dispersed society with mass-communication facilities. Massproduced popular culture is controlled and
produced by a limited segment of society. As a
result, the images presented there represent a
limited arena of social consciousness. Thus, in
an age when mass-produced popular culture is
prevalent, the publics ability to participate in
the construction of popular culture is altered
and limited in many ways. The public has become passivethey act like sponges that soak
up but do not produce popular culture except in
limited ways.
This idea is reflected in the bread and circuses debate, which helps to explain the main
thesis of this article. Broadly speaking, the
bread and circuses theory asserts that popular
culture is an effective instrument for the control
of the general public, which helps to maintain a
societys economic and political arrangements.
This is possible, according to this theory, because once popular cultural forms become trivial and removed from real-life scenarios experi-

334

M. J. LYNCH and L. A. KRZYCKI

enced by average citizens, the vast majority of

the public is unable to tell that it is being manipulated by a ruling class who controls the system
of mass communication and entertainment
(Ferreira, 1990:1). Thus, once popular culture
becomes a monopolized industry controlled by
the economical and political elite, the only
forms of popular culture available to them are
insignificant and superficial forms of entertainment. Consequently, lacking critical, usable information, in exchange for bread and circuses, the
people unthinkingly collaborate in their economic
and social exploitation (Ferreira, 1990:1).16
In essence, mass-produced popular culture is
able to succeed in remaking popular culture
messages, stripping them of meaning and relevance and thereby reducing the publics opportunity to influence the content of mass-produced popular culture. This fact should have
profound effects on the ways in which one interprets popular culture and its effects, and its
relationship to crime and justice issues in an era
dominated by mass-produced popular culture.
For example, in modern society, the analysis of
mass-produced popular culture is important because the images that it contains reinscribe stereotypes (hooks, 1993). Rap music and gang
stereotypes, for example, contain powerful images and stories about crime and justice (Krzycki, 1993). While some of the mass-produced
images modern mass media produces about
crime or justice are accurate, much of what is
produced is dis or mis information. Thus, in
studying popular culture in the modern era, the
formidable task that faces researchers is separating myth from reality. There is a need in popular culture research on crime and justice to dismantle, deconstruct, and reconstruct images to
facilitate the creation of an environment in
which the issue of crime and justice can be
more fully understood and appreciated.

NOTES
1. The term mass media is used casually and inconsistently by popular culture researchers, often resulting in confusion. For purposes of this paper, mass media refers to
the various organized corporate institutions whose main
concern is to own, operate, and control the means of the distribution of the various forms of popular culture texts by

several means of technology, including radio, television,

news shows, newspapers, music, movies, etc.
2. Mass-producing popular cultural industries, can be defined as a group of industries that includes radio, movie, and
television production companies, recording companies, the
producers of comic books, trading cards, clothing, and toys.
3. Consider the following few facts and figures on the
economics of modern popular culture that illustrate the immense economic power and concentration of popular culture in specific regions of the economy. Daily morning and
evening newspaper circulation in the United States, 1995:
58.2 million (Information Please, 1997:315); United States
households with televisions in 1996: 95.9 million (Information Please, 1997:746); shipment value of musical recordings, 1995: $13.3 billion (Information Please, 1997: 744);
the top ten advertising agencies billed a total of $70 billion
in 1995 (Adweek, 1996); circulation for the ten largest magazines in the United States: Readers Digest, 15,103,830;
TV Guide, 13,175,549; National Geographic, 8,988,444;
Better Homes and Gardens, 7,603,207; Family Circle,
6,007,542; Good Housekeeping, 5,372,786; Ladies Home
Journal, 5,045,644; Womens Day, 4,707,330; McCalls,
4,520,186; Time, 4,083,105 (Information Please, 1997:311).
4. The era or type of popular culture referred to as popular culture produced by the masses is often defined as folk
culture. This term is found to be somewhat derisive as well
as contrary to the observations offered by Schroeder (1980).
First, there is a tendency to speak of folk cultures as being
primitive, suggesting that only modern people are capable
of creating the types of culture (possibly some historical
version of high culture) worthy of the name culture, as
well as academic study and analysis (Burke, 1976). Second,
the exclusive use of the term folk culture also implies that
the cultural products of preindustrial (often referred to as
primitive) societies are not only less worthy, but less
widespread or less popular (Barbu, 1976). Indeed, if consumption is the main method for defining those parts or
types of cultures which are considered popular, then the
cultural products of preindustrial societies appear to better
fit the definition of a popular culture. As Barbu (1976:53)
notes:
Traditional culture is popular to the extent to which it is the
expression of an integrated community which constitutes the
hallmark of a traditional society of a primitive or peasant
type. Within the framework of a traditional society, the notions of popular, common and universal have convergent if
not overlapping connotations, as far as cultural products and
values are concerned.

For these reasons, as well as those offered by Schroeder

(1980) and Lally (1980), the usual distinction between folk
and popular cultures can confound the issue being analyzed.
5. Here, this term simply refers to the message as a product of the masses. Clearly, mass-produced or modern popular culture has a meaning or message, however, modern
popular culture is not necessarily produced solely to transmit a message. The same cannot be said of popular culture
produced by the masses. It appears that the main motive behind the production of popular culture is the transmission of
messages (see Krzycki (1993) for a discussion regarding
popular culture terminology).
6. The term meaning is used here with specific reference to ideological meanings that can be associated with

Popular Culture as an Ideological Mask

class-specific locations (Lukacs, 1985). Masses, generally

nonowning classes, have specific interests that are not
served by the messages communicated in all forms of popular culture, particularly in those forms produced by mass media.
7. Popular culture produced by the masses could not be
owned as ownership is thought of today. One can, for example, own a copy of Batman Returns or a car. In earlier eras,
however, when popular culture was transmitted as verbal
stories, it could not be owned in the same sense popular culture is owned today. It could be owned in the sense that it
was produced by a particular class, that class transmitted its
stories to each other, and members of that class could
change the story or participate in reconstructing the story.
8. The behaviors that appear in popular culture produced
by the masses may be real or exaggerated. Thus, heroic behavior may or may not have occurred exactly as told in popular culture sources (Hobsbawm, 1980). What is important
is how popular culture stories are constructed and passed on
by the masses, and the messages that these stories contain.
The truth of these stories is less interesting than their
ideological content.
9. The peoples popular culture, then, in one sense represented a collective embodiment of the hearts and minds of
the people.
10. The mass produced forms of popular culture includes
both state controlled and mass-media owner produced forms.
11. This is not meant to suggest that all modern popular
culture is devoid of ideological messages; or that all massproduced popular culture excludes messages produced by
the masses; or that all of popular culture produced by the
masses necessarily includes ideological messages.
12. The terms musical instruments and crude appear
in quotes here in realization of the fact that the meaning of
these terms is culturally and historically variable. This article, of course, is looking at them from the perspective of the
twentieth century.
13. On the connection between scarcity of resources and
feuding cultures, which have attributes similar to gang cultures, see Newman and Lynch, 1987.
14. Ted Carpenter (1973) offers a good example of the
dogma of the effects approach to the study of popular culture: I think that the media are so powerful they swallow
cultures. I think of them as invisible environments which
surround and destroy old environments (p. 1).
15. In many respects, this character is more than a comic
book figure, since he appears on television and in movies; in
all forms, this character remains the product of mass-produced popular culture.
16. For an expanded discussion of the bread and circuses
theory, please see Krzycki, 1993, and Ferreira, 1990.

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