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The meaning of a public spectacle, world's fairs, is examined, with particular emphasis on the 1986 world's exposition in Vancouver. Various theoretical readings of mass culture and popular culture are analysed: on the one hand, the view of the culture industry, imposing hegemonic meanings through spectacles onto a depoliticised mass audience, and on the other the view of an active interpenetration of cultural producers and consumers, which includes the capacity for resistance to the web of signification spun by dominant elites. The thesis is considered that world's fairs are an instrument of hegemonic power. Although Expo 86 was organised by a political and economic elite, evidence from 2200 visitors points to a fractured and negotiated power that was never absolute.