Hoggart takes a number of aspects of mass society today - celebrity worship, youth culture, broadcasting, and a decline in the proper use of language - and considers the paradox that the ready accessibility of information of all types does not automatically lead to greater comprehension of our world. Information itself is inert and only leads to knowledge if it has been ordered and assessed.
He assesses the slow but uninterrupted dissolution of old beliefs, the erosion of the traditional pillars of authority throughout a century and a half of sustained intellectual criticism of existing assumptions and beliefs, and the resulting corruption of language.
Richard Hoggart is a distinguished cultural critic and author of The Uses of Literacy, his most celebrated book. Formerly Professor of English at Birmingham he has sat on many government advisory committees and was Chairman of the National Book League.