Culture in Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Book Dialectic of Enlightenment

With the proposed concepts, such as branding in commercialism, High Culture/Low Culture, and the false promises made in uniform products, one is granted to see today’s society as hovering closely to a capitalistic system set up to facilitate the vast desires of the masses. As Adorno and Horkheimer bluntly put it, “personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions” (71). We can only think of ourselves as just another gear in the American machine, churning away endlessly and waiting to be fed with the uniformity of culture, the greed, manipulation, and

Born in 1903, Theodore Adorno is one of the most prominent figures in the Frankfurt school of communications, a school of social theory and philosophy which studied the effects and structure of the media. In 1945, Adorno published one of his most famous articles, “A Social Critique of Radio Music”. In his somehow controversial essay, Adorno claims that the music played on the radio reflects broader social behavior patterns, that benefits the power elite and numbs the masses. Adorno goes on and state four axioms he believed to be true regarding the existing capitalist society, including how we live in a society of commodities. The main problem he dissects in his article, is that now music is being treated as a commodity as well. Further,

In his work, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno analyzes the nature of the culture industry. People everywhere are constantly being consumed by the culture industry, which is a term for the mass production of cultural goods such as films, magazines, and music. Adorno is concerned that the government uses the cultural industry as a way to deceive the masses and manipulate them into passivity. This idea remains true in today’s society. Young men and women are more interested in the release of the newest Taylor Swift or Adele song than political issues. People have become less intellectual as they are being consumed by the culture industry. It is much easier for a person to let himself be consumed by mass media and to let the media

Furthermore, Dorothy Smith argues that social theory offers little female perspective, especially seen in large concepts such as media. This application can be seen in Adorno’s argument of culture industry, in which mass media is used as a mechanism to hinder people’s ability to

In the text Adorno and Horkheimer primarily focuses on the issue of art such movies, radio program and etc becoming a commodity and the fusing of the market and art areas. The criticism of the culture industry stems from the fact that for Adorno and Horkheimer culture held the answer for liberation, however the mass produced culture that they found in America was instead enslaving people. Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument regarding mass culture produced products and its effects and commoditization of art remain important to contemporary society because these issues have continued to have a negative effect on contemporary society this can be observed by analyzing contemporary mass culture products such as television, movies and the internet.

“The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer is a pivotal article in history that changed the way in which many communications scholars viewed media. Both authors were members of the Frankfurt School, a school of thought which looked further into Karl Marx’s theories about capitalism and the issues of mass production. Published in 1944, Adorno and Horkheimer revealed their beliefs that the media, much like the economy, is becoming mass produced, and is therefore turning people in society into media-consuming robots. Industrialization created work lives for people in which they would work on only one part of a larger machine. As a result, they felt less involved in the completion of the project as a whole, and therefore felt less pride in their jobs and their lives in general. Instead, these people turned to media and pop culture so that they would feel more fulfillment within their lives. Adorno and Horkheimer believed that these people had a reduced capacity for original thought because media is now force feeding them the ideas of what they can think and feel. This essay will prove that although Adorno and Horkeimer’s points were justified through the eyes of authors George Lipsitz, Lev Manovich, and Susan J. Douglas, there are still exceptions to their theories that they do not account for.

One would argue that one of the benefits of mass media is that we can access whatever information we want with the press of a button. While we think that we have agency, we have “‘freedom to choose what is always the same’” (Ross). We are fed what is popular, limiting us from seeing what we need. Pop hegemony is able to dominate “through a structure of consent” (Culler). This consent is possible due to the exchange of deception for momentary gratification (Adorno). The creation of music, literature, art was meant to fuel our well being. Then somewhere along the way, it was turned into something enabling the corruption of the self. The industry is so successful with telling us what we should want because while doing so, they incorporate what

This essay will evaluate Adorno’s critical attack on popular music. The essay will briefly provide some context on Adorno. Adorno claims that “listeners are made not born”, thus listening is a cultural practice, in which modernity has transformed into a profit (Adorno, 2002:248). By this, the essay will begin by focusing on the broader idea of the culture industry, in terms of commodities and popular music as not being critical. Following on, particular focus will be given to three main areas which convey Adorno’s criticism of popular music. These being, the musical form under standardisation, pseudo-individualisation and regressive listening in terms of escapism. Standardisation will be evaluated in structural terms, and critiqued by Middleton (1990) and Witkin (2003). Adorno’s critique of popular music can only be understood in relation to his analysis of serious music, therefore, the essay will focus on both types of music. Adorno’s criticisms of popular music and critics of this criticism, will enable for a conclusion to be drawn on whether or not I agree with Adorno’s claims on popular music.

Mass culture can be defined as the collective culture created by exposure to the same news sources, music, literature, art and consumer advertising. The rise of mass culture is a relatively new phenomenon that has occurred largely because of the rise of a leisure class fueled by technological innovations, the surplus in production brought about by the industrial revolution and the time the average consumer had to dedicate to non-work pursuits brought about by the delineated work schedule favored by mass production and labor laws which defined the limits of the production schedule, and created a new space for workers and their families. Prior to the advent of mass culture, “high culture” was defined by the elite classed made up of landed and hereditary wealth which defined the proper forms of cultural expression and used control of the access to this culture to define in-group identification and signal cultural cues which were to be picked up and mimicked by the lower classes. The monopoly on cultural expression changed with the advent of the mass production of goods which were made affordable by the sheer scale of their manufacture and the necessity to create awareness of this production surplus means of communication on a scale heretofore unseen in human history. The rise of mass culture was also made possible by the urbanization of societies as nations transitioned from predominantly agrarian societies to ones based on manufacturing and service. This

In the first part of Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno mainly discuss the enlightenment. At first they wrote about how the enlightenment was viewed as a positive thing. After they state how enlightenment was viewed in the past, they contrast that view by asserting that enlightenment is the disenchantment of the world. They also say that the enlightenment wanted to dismiss the myths and get rid of fantasy with knowledge. Horkheimer and Adorno also asserted that enlightenment always reverted back to myth. They also argued that the enlightenment demythologized the natural world with knowledge. In the text of Dialectic of Enlightenment, the authors also talk about how myth and enlightenment share the fact that mankind always seeks domination over nature. Horkheimer and Adorno both are critical of the enlightenment and they also seek to redeem it. They also seek to explain that enlightenment will always revert back to myth.

Adorno and Horkheimer suggest ideology as the reason dominant culture industries are able to sustain themselves. They argue that “The culture industry tends to make itself the embodiment of authoritative pronouncements, and thus the irrefutable prophet of the prevailing order” (Adorno and Horkheimer 17). Thus, we can think of these “authoritative pronouncements” as methods Hollywood employs to sustain its dominance. By proclaiming a certain set of ideas which convinces the public that no other authority or ideas exist otherwise, Hollywood mystifies and obfuscates all other traces of thought. It normalizes its manipulation of the public by ostracizing other values and ideas outside the predominant notions of standardization and mass production.

Economism, or vulgar Marxism, is a key feature in explaining the media’s role according to Marx. This is also referred to as the base/superstructure model. In economism, “the economic base of society is seen as determining everything else in the superstructure, including social, political, and intellectual consciousness.” (Marxist Media Theory 1) This maintains that the media is used as the base of society. Society is referred to as the superstructure. Clearly, media shapes society even today. Since consumers rely on the media for information and entertainment, (ex. Television and radio new, magazines, newspapers, Internet), they are shaped by whatever forms of media they chose to be an audience to. The media manipulates everything from popular fashion to the food people consume.

Conversely, Classical Marxism, ‘vulgar Marxism’, often dismisses human/consumer agency when discussing the power of the upper class bourgeoisie (Berger, 44). Generally Marxism discusses tools of social control, and is a key tool in critiquing capitalism and class structure, in order to interpret and ultimately change contemporary media through attacking the bourgeoisie (Fuschs and Mosco, 135). . This essay focus on Marx specifically in relation to media within capitalist society. (Berger, 41). The media in capitalsit society is inherently problematic, according to Marxist theory. MEdia

For this essay, the central issue that will be investigated is the amount of influence that Adorno refers to as “the culture industry” has on viewers and how it will put in place a set of beliefs regarding what they think about the world surrounding them in the image it is presenting them. He and Benjamin have offered different theories on the amount of narrative influence the culture industry has on the audience and the way it will guide their way of thinking about certain issues as well as establishing belief systems.

Within this paper I will describe Adorno and Horkheimer best known work in their article, The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. I will describe in great detail their concept of the culture industry and its mass deception on society. Then, I will compare Adorno and Horkheimer’s view of the creator and receiver to that of the Birmingham School touching on both their similarities and differences. Lastly, I will explain both schools influence on sociology and sociological research concerning mass cultural production and describe how an empirical study based on both schools would compare.