Thanks for that correction Schantieman. It was a somewhat disturbing term the first time.

Opening it up and widening that restricted canon Jennifer referred to would indeed have been a good idea, for example to include things like real folk music and song which had been excluded. But in general that wasn't what has happened. Instead we got Big Brother and wall to wall soap. (There's still a certain amount of good radio though - and if you've got cable, BBC Four (TV) is worth keeping an eye on.)

The good thing is that one effect of crap mass media can be to drive people out into the real world to find something better. (Except that for us in England the Public Entertainment Licence stuff then tends to kick in.)

The sad thing about the English (making one of those generalisations with a built-in need to qualify and modify it) is that they often tend to be proudest of the bits of Englishness that they might be better to be ashamed of, and embarrassed and dismissive of the bits that they have a right to be proud of. (And the music and the associated folk traditions are an example of that.)

The same is probably true of a lot of people in all countries. That's the impression that often seems to come across for the USA, for example.