Umberto Eco: Cultura popular y comunicación (1987)

Overview

Umberto Eco’s talk (1987) argues that mass communication and popular culture can be understood using the same aesthetic questions that apply to fine art—especially the problem of repetition, seriality, and variation.

1) From “originality” to an aesthetics of repetition

• Eco contrasts:
  • Classical aesthetics, which seeks beauty as an eternal “type”
  • Modern mass culture, where industrial production and mass media generate series forms (songs, ads, comics, TV narratives)
• He argues that industrial repetition does not automatically trivialize art. The key is how variation is introduced inside repeating structures.
• In post-modern culture, what matters is not absolute novelty, but the strategic use of the same patterns with meaningful differences.

2) Seriality: types within the “series”

Eco analyzes narrative forms in popular media by breaking down how repeated storytelling works:

• Sequel: continues a prior story—typically with known characters and expectations.
• Remake / new version: redoes an earlier story with changes, sometimes preserving the “type” more than the plot.

He also distinguishes series from saga:

• A series keeps a more stable setup. Episodes can repeat a recognizable narrative scheme (e.g., detective formats), aiming for reassurance and variation within sameness.
• A saga tracks a family or long-term arc across time, emphasizing continuity and evolving relationships over generations.

3) “Two levels” of spectatorship and interpretation

A major focus of the talk is how audiences engage serial works differently:

• A naïve recipient (first level): enjoys the basic narrative expectations.
• A critical recipient (second level): recognizes intertextual references, genre conventions, and structural tricks.

Eco uses examples such as Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade / Temple of Doom to show how spectatorship can yield different pleasures:

• some are comforted by familiar structures
• others feel frustrated or delighted when expectations are manipulated based on prior-film knowledge

4) Intertextuality as a mass-media extension of “high art”

Eco argues that popular media often depends on intertextual knowledge—knowing other texts, genres, conventions, and earlier installments.

• This aligns with post-modern logic: referencing previous works and embedding meanings through cultural competence.
• As a result, spectatorship becomes a decoding activity: understanding the work requires recognizing the “network” of references.

5) Variation as the “engine” of aesthetic value

Eco’s central thesis is that serial repetition gains aesthetic value through variation, comparable to musical variations.

Variation can happen at different scales:

• Surface level: new events, characters, or situations
• Deeper structural level: altered narrative expectations or changes in how the scheme is executed

Using examples like The Sopranos and Colombo (as well as typical TV cases), Eco argues that repetition without variation becomes empty, while variation within repetition sustains interest and meaning.

6) Post-modernism and the “neo-baroque” idea

Eco engages contemporary criticism (including references to Calabrese) and frames the new serial aesthetics as neo-baroque:

• not an aesthetic of pure novelty
• but one marked by complexity, irregularity, proliferating combinations, and meaningful textual “segments” that may behave like independent variables within the serial whole

The talk suggests this structure can make works feel potentially endless (soap opera logic), while still maintaining coherence through recurring patterns and ongoing variation.

7) A provisional conclusion: art can exist without “absolute originality”

Eco concludes that serial popular forms should not be dismissed as mere industrial products.

• Artistic value is possible when repetition is organized as a semiotic procedure
  • variation is disciplined by structure
  • different audiences can extract different kinds of meaning
• In short: the “originality” of popular seriality lies in the controlled variation of established forms, not in one-time invention.

Presenters / Contributors

• Umberto Eco (primary speaker)