Put simply, the Skyscraper Model is a method of sorting media into a hierarchy, with products deemed to be a part of “high culture” on higher floors of a skyscraper and products seen as “low culture” on the lower floors.
High culture was regarded as “good taste” and contained media with objectively superior qualities. Those who consumed this sort of media were generally wealthy patrons and highly educated individuals. Examples of high culture include ballet, art museums, symphonies, and reading classical literature. Qualities thought to be characteristic of high culture were rarity, originality, timelessness, and if the work was created by a genius or artist.
Low culture, however, was deemed as the “questionable” taste of the masses who enjoyed commercial “junk” via various forms of mass media. Examples of low-culture media include reality television, violent video games, and teen pop music. These can be translated into modern media works such as the reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the video game Call of Duty, and the album SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo. Works considered to be a part of low-culture are characterized as trendy, formulaic, mindless, commercialized, and easily accessible.
The Skyscraper Model was constructed and prominently used during the twentieth century by critics and audiences to support certain assumptions about what makes media products better or worse. It is important to keep in mind that this model was produced amidst a specific political context. During this time, America’s social elites felt that their control over the public was slipping as the working-class and immigrant populations grew. Their solution to this problem was to reinforce the idea that the culture they could control, “high culture,” was superior to that of working-class people. Because the modern era was primarily focused on progress and expert opinion, beliefs such as the Skyscraper Model helped elites maintain their power and influence.