The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception

Jenkins talks about how the consumption of media products is a collective process, in other words, the collective intelligence is seen as an alternative source of media power. He describes how within popular culture, the collective meaning making is shaping and changing the ways religion, education, laws, politics, advertising and how the military operate (4). Jenkins discusses a process called “convergence of modes”, he explains that media and communication are becoming interconnected like the telephone and television.

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 question I have posed is a very contentious one, which has been debated by scholars and graduates for some time, with many arguing that popular culture and mass media are ways of brainwashing the 'masses' into the ways of a dominant social order. Others believe that popular culture is a type of 'folk' culture which encompasses the idea of an 'alternative' culture incorporating minority groups, perhaps with subversive values sometimes challenging the dominant control groups, as was scene with the advent of the 'Indie' music scene in the mid nineteen nineties. In this dissertation I aim to uncover whether aforementioned 'subversive values' can be uncovered in popular culture or whether popular culture is really a means by which the masses can direct dominant controlling forces.

“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.

Postman (1987) claims that television is an evil that destroys the purpose and complexities of public discourse. He argues that important issues are oversimplified and drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Chaffee and Metzger (2001) confirm this assumption by remarking the evolution of print and radio into television and television into new media. Establishing the similarities between Postman’s chief complaints about the television medium and the new media then rearing its ugly head. Chaffee and Metzger indicate the shift in the denotations of mass, media, and communication. With technological advancements, it is impossible to ignore the new media and its impact on modern culture.

In our society, there are many forms of mediated texts ranging from newspapers and magazines to films and television shows. Each of these media forms can be seen from different theoretical perspectives and analyzed to understand the different concepts that may influence them. Television shows are one of the most popular media texts with approximately 400 new shows airing each year (Ryan, 2016). However, it is often very unlikely for these television shows to strive as 65% are cancelled after their first season (Ocasio, 2012). This then, brings Marxist scholars into the picture as they are interested in how economic factors affect the production and distribution of media content (Mack & Ott, 2016). The Marxist theoretical perspective allows Marxist scholars to study television shows in order to understand why they were cancelled and how certain roles in the media lead to this.

According to Theodor W. Adorno in The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, the culture industry is the entertainment business. “The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry” (1113). While people are consuming products from the entertainment manufacturers “with alertness even when the customer is distraught,” real life is not becoming indistinguishable from the movies (1113). The majority of consumers are able to distinguish products from the entertainment manufacturers such as movies, TV shows, radio and books from reality.

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.

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.

In 1944, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, members of the Frankfurt School who fled from the Nazi Germany to the USA, were publishing their seminal essay ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’. Political critique, their thesis about the ideological domination of capitalism on cultural production is one that persists today and is regularly renewed (Mukerji & Schudson, 1991). Yet, since the first half of the twentieth century, evolutions have occurred within the ‘Culture Industry’, and while the theory – focusing primarily on the music and cinema industries – is still applicable to some features of contemporary ‘cultural industries’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2007), these changes require a contemporary reconsideration of it.

Mass media plays an important role in the society by providing entertainment, information and acting as the government’s overseer. Several scholars have developed philosophies that help people understand how mass media fulfills its roles in the society. For example, Horkheimer and Adorno have constructed theories that explain the functions and impacts of mass media in the society across the globe (Mosco, 2008). The central theme in all mass communication models entails the meaning of media contents, which include the images and texts and their influence on the target audience. The perception of the target audience concerning the text and images in the media are what form the basis of these theories. This essay discusses two hypothetical frameworks: the political economy and cultural studies theories, including their similarities and differences, and how they help in understanding the relationship between the media and society.