Mass culture: pseudoneeds and satisfaction
It is considered special needs of a modern mass society, which act at the same time as pseudoneeds. The author shows the symbolic consumption of the sense of identity of individuals, a new mythology, "authorizing" a way of life in which a person should not own desires and inclinations imposed by the fashion, advertising, and mass media. The basis of the pleasure of meeting pseudoneeds is symbolic, the pleasure derived from the individual in social communication. The author emphasizes the "paradox of satisfaction of pseudoneeds" in contemporary culture: in spite of its symbolic nature, they turn to a real person, pleasure and pain, as the focus on the social self-assertion.