Print Culture and Distribution

The invention of printing press in 1450 kick started the renaissance era as it multiplies the capacity to publicise information to the masses. Publicity - controlled by the elites - brought class discrimination to the Western society as they establish the elite class, which are deemed to be superior to the rest of the people. The elite class built institutions like the Royal Academy for the sake of self-aggrandisement, in which artists were trained to make historical painting and immortalise the 'great and the good'.

Modernisation brought a paradigm shift towards the Western culture. People started to migrate to urban areas, and establish new class division between the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie. Therefore, giving rise to new culture since the working class made their own culture, mass manufactured, and become the root of popular culture. The prints sheer capacity to disseminate information had given more freedom for the working class to communicate their ideas. It also helped artists to gain more by selling reproduction of their artworks. The sale of prints could also potentially give boost on the value of their artworks. On the other hand, could poses some risks. It could encourage people to create their own political culture and form cults, which contributes to many prevailing political conflict in today's society. The domestication of print culture is threatening elitist culture, and the elites believed that the 'authentic' culture is trashed by the popular culture. In 1936, Walter Benjamin writes about the impact of reproducing to the aura of the authentic artwork. He touches on the potential of the changing aura to bring a social revolution. He thought that reprinting will distribute culture to the people, and allow them to respond to the culture. In this sense, people becomes aware that they have the freedom to own and voice out personal ideas on real world issues.

 Members of the Frankfurt School, like Adorno and Walter Benjamin, perceived that popular culture gave rises to facism as the masses were made aware and accepts that there are some people who deserves better than them. Therefore, they are willing to abide the totalitarian social authority, and dismisses any idiosyncrasies prevalent in works of art as pretentious. However, the working class does not care about what the people from the ruling class think about their culture. Instead, a democratic cultural revolution occured, followed by the establishments of many school of designs 70 years after the Royal Academy, in which people learn to focus on functionality of ideas and images,while learning about the popular culture and produce lesser arts. Despite its name, lesser art have the potential to do big things in the society. This is why school of designs have reintroduced the concept of genuine art so that it can be applied in any form of popular arts.