Newspapers: Examples of Low Culture?

While reading an essay, 'Cubist Collage, the Public, and the Culture of Commodities' by revered art historian Christine Poggi, I discovered some very interesting sentiments regarding Journalism.

Historically, literature was something that was only accessible to the wealthy classes who were able to afford to buy books. Consequently, an ability or inability to read was indicative of one's social ranking. With the invention of the rolling press it became possible for many to have access to written material. In Paris alone, by the 1880s, there were seventy daily newspapers, attesting to the emergence of a new audience for printed matter. This result in the growth of literacy among all classes and meant that reading could no longer provide a stable ground for class differences or cultural hierarchies.

Mallarmé

Many within the literature sphere, such as artists and poets, as well as well-to-members of society found great fault with this mass production of literature. For Mallarmé, a famous French poet and critic, the phenomena of the newspaper highlighted the prevailing tendency to transform language into a mere commodity, thereby rendering its qualitative value as symbol into a mere exchange value. In his essay, ' The Book: A Spiritual Instrument.' Mallarmé noted:

"I ... propose to examine, technically, how this rag [the newspaper] differs from the book, which is supreme. The newspaper provides an opening: literature discharges itself there at will.

The foldings of a book have, with respect to the page printed at large, an almost religious significance, which is less striking, however, than their thickness when they are piled together, offering a minuscule tomb, certainly, for the soul." 

As Poggi writes in her essay, for those like Mallarmé, "the cut folds of the book remain forever intact, pure, virginal. By comparison, the newspaper is already defied. To read a newspaper is to encounter the flat, open pages of the commodity, which, like the prostitute, disports itself with all corners."

Thus, it can be seen that when newspapers and the profession of Journalism firstly emerged, they were viewed by many as falling within the category of Low Culture. Some may argue that this is still the case in modern society. I, however, think that comparing literature such as poetry and novels to newspapers is an unfair comparison as they have completely different purposes. While poetry and novels aim mostly to entertain, newspapers aim to educate and inform.