Popular Culture and Mass Communication in Twentieth-Century France

Fifteen British and French contributors examine here modern and contemporary French culture, with essays on: changing trends in government evaluation of culture; the proletarian writers and journalism in the 1930s; radio and cinema; popular cultural activities such as horse-racing, war-memorials, and comic strips; France's multi-cultural nature; and gender issues in the mass media. A key area, on which the volume concentrates, and which illustrates the shift in cultural definition, is advertising, both as an historical phenomenon and a new cultural form. Finally, an essay on changing attitudes to the French language encapsulates the issues involved in the erosion of the barrier between high and popular culture.