Yeah, I've read the book many a years ago. Another good read in this vein is Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" [1]:
"they proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances."
"they proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry