A “Monoculture” generally refers to the idea that a society shares a singular cultural experience. A monocultural society is one in which an individual can be relatively certain that their friends, colleagues and family will have experienced the same cultural artifact as they did at a similar time. The clearest example to give here is that of broadcast television. In 1964, the United Kingdom had only three television channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. About three quarters of households had at least one television in the 1960s, so there was a high chance that any given group of people in that society would be consuming the same content. Over a half century later, a massive multiplicity of media choice has developed. No longer …
The term “monoculture” actually refers to an ecological concept, where human intervention in nature leads to one sort of plant or animal species becoming more prevalent than the naturally occurring diversity. To use the metaphor within the sphere of culture is to imply that there is a homogeneity at the point of production (of media). However, the commonsensical use of “monoculture” actually tends to refer to a uniformity at the point of consumption (of media) – it is possible for everyone to be watching the same television programmes, films, listening to the same music and reading the same books, and for there to be a high level of diversity within those mediums. The same group of people could watch the same five films, but those five films may have a significant variation between them of country of origin, language, style, genre etc. The opposite sense of monoculture is also possible. A group of people could watch a completely different set of five films each, and yet those films could be from the same country, the same language, the similar styles and the same genre. So monoculture of production and monoculture of consumption must be differentiated.
Similarly, monoculture of form and monoculture of content must be differentiated. Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment referred to a monoculture of sorts being produced what they deemed The Culture Industry – a few large film production companies held monopoly power of what a cinema-goer would see on the screen. They believed the consequence of this is that culture was “infected with sameness”. This refers to a monoculture of form. As they say: “Under monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through.”
However, the digital revolution has somewhat broken-up the corporate giants’ monopoly over the culture industry. Anyone can produce videos on YouTube, anyone can become a commentator on Twitter, and Instagram’s highly visual form provides anyone with a smartphone with the capacity to produce a feed of photos somewhat similar to that of the lifestyle magazines of the past.