Dumbing down

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Dumbing down is a dysphemism for a perceived simplification of, amongst others, education, news and television.

Related Topics:
Dysphemism - Education - News - Television

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Some authorities believe that the audience — be it of television or print media — is being fed a mass-produced, poor quality, and populist diet that leads to an ever-decreasing audience attention span. These ideas have been in circulation for many decades in the social science literature on mass culture argued, for example, by Richard Hoggart, Rosenberg and David Manning White, and Raymond Williams. The sentiment has its routes in the Matthew Arnold and F. R. Leavis approach to culture, particularly the former's Culture and Anarchy.

Related Topics:
Television - Print media - Attention span - Richard Hoggart - David Manning White - Raymond Williams - Matthew Arnold - F. R. Leavis - Culture and Anarchy

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The concept "dumbing down" can point to a variety of different things but the concept always involves a claim about the simplification of culture, education, and thought, a decline in creativity and innovation, a degradation of artistic, cultural, and intellectual standards, or the undermining of the very idea of a standard, and the trivialisation of cultural, artistic, and academic creations.

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The term is usually subjective since what is labelled as 'dumbed down' often depends upon the values of individuals of specific groups. Pierre Bourdieu discusses how the practices of dominant groups in society are legitimised to the disadvantage of subordinate groups.

Related Topics:
Subjective - Values - Pierre Bourdieu

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