NY Times book list

          In last week's lecture, we discussed Herbert J. Gans' views on taste cultures and taste publics. He believed that choices in consumption are not random and that a person who prefers one particular interest will tend to prefer an array of cultural objects and practices that share a common aesthetic. He calls this preference a "taste culture" and defines the people who make these similar choices for similar reasons as the "taste public." Although these taste publics can be based on race, age, or gender, the major source of differentiation between taste cultures and publics is socioeconomic level or class. To differentiate between the various taste publics, Gans divided society into five basic taste cultures: high, upper middle, lower middle, low, and quasi-folk low culture. 
      One difference between the various taste cultures that piqued my interest was the preference for a particular theme in books and media. While the upper middle culture liked nonfiction and themes that dealt with individual struggle and success, the lower culture preferred action and melodrama. The lower middle culture  focused on performers over creators and paid no heed to critics; high culture, on the other hand, focused on the directors over the actors. Because the high culture is the most creator-oriented of all cultures, it is dominated by critics and theorists. High culture tends to prefer themes of alienation, and since the critics and theorists come from this class, books that are reviewed as top-sellers tend to share the tastes of high culture. To validate Gans' observations, I scanned the New York Times Best-Sellers List to see which themes were prevalent. I found two example within a few seconds of reviewing the list that accurately portray the prevalence of high culture tastes on the New York Times list. Both novels follow a theme of alienation, a taste that is not as liked by taste cultures of lower socioeconomic classes.

2

THE LAST BOY, by Jane Leavy.  A biography of the Yankees star Mickey Mantle, who grappled with a wrenching childhood and physical injuries.

5

UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS, by Portia de Rossi. The actress discusses her career, her anorexia and her years of hiding her lesbianism.

         Perusing other books on the Best-Sellers list, I found mostly themes of alienation or individual struggle and success, the theme most characteristic of upper class culture. Themes representative of the lower middle culture and below were harder to find. Although the lower middle culture is America's dominant taste public and prefers substance and forms, books following this format were not as common on the list. Because the list is created by critics, the list is organized by a taste public that all share the same taste culture- high culture. This phenomenon parallels Marx's idea that the media amplifies the ideas of the ruling class. Because the high culture taste public is the dominant class, they can reproduce the viewpoints of their dominant institutions through the media, as seen by the New York Times Best-Sellers list's tendency to list novels that appeal to high culture taste.