Kultura popularna, kultura masowa i zagadnienie emancypacji.

In the field on mass/popular culture theory one can distinguish two different aproaches – according to the first of them, culture is a tool of social control and the source of profit (this two functions can complement each other); according to the second, popular culture is a semiotic battlefield, where one can produce also opposite and subversive meanings. In this article I’m setting myself two goals. In the first part of the text I’ll compare two foregoing traditions. In the further parts I’ll confront the following question: can this two theories help us to understand the possibilities of emancipatory subjects in contemporary world? Because the emancipatory and opposite functions of popular culture are emphasized mainly by members of the second tradition, I’ll concentrate here primarily on their views.