Pop Culture Analysis

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

Adorno writes that the public usually follows what they believe to be the popular opinion. The study performed with the high school students can be used as an example to prove this point, where students identified their favorite songs as the same songs that were most popular at the time. The cause of the correlation can be understood as a desire to fit in. Since the students believed the crowd prefered a certain song, their desire to belong to that crowd results in them declaring (and convincing themselves) they like the song as well. The issue is that this proceeding happens to numerous listeners: Their desire to belong to what they believe to be a pre-existing crowd actually turns them into one. What Adorno is illustrating here is the circularity that pertains listening to radio music: Listeners notice a song is being played many times on the radio. Unaware of how the plugging of music really works, they believe the song’s frequent plugging is due to high popular demand. Their belief that the crowd enjoys the song, in addition to their desire to belong, results in people choosing to praise the song as well. This, in turn, culminates in the song’s actual (albeit superficial) popularity and more importantly, turns people into a mindless

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.

Theodor Adorno was an important member of the Frankfurt School, which developed ideas of critical theory and cultural Marxism. Adorno adopted a Marxists approach in his work, especially among his work as a musicologist, seeing propaganda within popular music. He saw music as thought provoking and believed that it prevented its listeners from having real thought, he wanted people to challenge the way they listened to popular music. In his article On Popular Music, which he had written in 1941, Adorno speaks about how he believed there were two spheres of music, popular and serious music. About the standardisation in popular music, in which it followed certain patterns which created pseudo-individualism. Also on how popular music affects its listeners in different ways compared to serious music. As a Marxist philosopher, Adorno was an idealist for the idea of capitalism, also as a Marxist sociologist he had an understanding of society and the idea of there being two different classes in all aspects of culture and society.

Throughout history, music has been seen as a medium in which different people all over the world can relate. Adorno criticizes, however, that songs that have the most “hits” on the top music charts or are most listened to, otherwise known as popular music, are being produced for and consumed by the masses as a commodity. He identifies popular music as being a part of a culture used for capitalism, and that we as listeners, are falling into a trap in which we believe songs have individuality and that we have the freedom to choose what we listen to. He argues that in reality these popular songs are all standardized and made to seem different through various elements that are added. In this paper, I will display how Adorno’s critique of popular music being used for capitalism applies to the song,1-800-273-8255, by hip-hop and rap artist Logic, through its standardized elements in both its content and marketing; however, I will argue that although it contains these elements, the audience is actively listening and responding to the song as it brings awareness to mental health and suicide prevention that is changing and saving lives all around us.

“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.

Pop culture is defined as a product of a culture that has a mass audience (Zeisler 2008:1). Pop culture is considered dependent on advertising, depicting women and people of colour in a problematic way and discriminating manner (Ziesler, 2008:2). Popular culture has become our common knowledge, and to understand it is a key part in understanding society as a whole. According to Beamish (2016), popular culture is a form of symbolic communication between humans. Symbols can be anything that can be recognized by a culture and often presented in the forms of language, values, norms, and material culture. The use of language is a powerful tool that allows for the media to relay particular messages to the rest of society. The imposition of certain concepts as a result can be argued as having a direct affect on the daily lives of those who are exposed. Whereas material culture allows the population to see these messages visually through advertisements, film, and television. Some basic forms of pop culture include television, film, music, news, and advertising. Popular culture is rooted in mass culture, and deemed for those who could not afford the means to participate in high culture activities. Those who subjected to the popular culture were assumed to be uneducated and unworthy of “real art” (Ziesler, 2008:1). The mass media

The ongoing process of mass production has caused a major shift in the relationship between the consumer and the object. This is apparent through the growth of advertising and its effect on human perception as well as major historical events which have tainted societies cultural identity. Issues regarding mass production and mass consumption have been a key area of critique for many post-war artists, political activists and Popism artists. This can be demonstrated through creative practitioners such as Ai Weiwei and his response to the Chinese Cultural Revolution in his work Dropping the Han Dynasty Urn (1995), Andreas Gursky’s exploration of globalization and the dramatic increase in the availability of consumer goods in his work 99 Cent (2001)

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’s essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (1944) describes culture industries, such as film, radio, and magazines, as ideological mediums of domination that reduce consumers into passive subjects. As members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory which critiqued post World War II Western modernity, Adorno and Horkheimer viewed the culture industry’s standardization and mass production as mechanisms of control under Capitalism, an economic system meant to maintain power among the wealthy. Similarly, Warren Susman’s essay” The People’s Fair: Cultural Contradictions of a Consumer Society” highlights the 1939 New York World’s Fair as a commodity meant to piece the public into a part of a

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

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.