The skyscraper model of culture is a model that illustrates the concepts of “high culture” and “low culture”. The model uses a skyscraper to show media that is “low culture” at the bottom of the skyscraper while the “high culture” ideas are at the top of the skyscraper, inaccessible to the people and media at the bottom of the illustration. The skyscraper model also includes a middle section that includes media that falls somewhere in between “high” and “low”. Media that fits into the “high culture” category includes Shakespeare, The New York Times, and classical music like Beethoven. Meanwhile, media that is “low culture” is more like trashy reality TV, Grand Theft Auto, and ultimate fighting.

The history that brought this model about has to do with the movement into the modern era of mass communications. The movement into the modern era brought the creation of mass media. Mass media brought the news, media, and culture that the upper classes had been enjoying to the average people, encouraging education and social upward mobility. But the upper class did not welcome this shift due to fears that mass media would appease the “poor tastes” of the lower classes and be bad for society. This led to the solidification of the qualities that make something “high culture”- hard to find, requiring education, expensive, and “low culture”- easy to find, not requiring education, and cheap. Therefore leading to the skyscraper model of culture, an easy way to organize our understanding of different types of media and these labels.