Summary Of Theodor Adorno's Dialectic Of Enlightenment

Why do I care so much about the lives of celebrities? (Why do I ‘Keep Up With the Kardashians’?) Do I want to be like the celebrities I glorify? Is my desired profession for working in the film industry driven by popular culture eminence? How influential or ‘brainwashing’ has popular culture been a factor in my lifestyle? Is it a good or bad influence? Does popular culture have an effect on my self-esteem? Has popular culture prematurely exposed me to social vices? (Sex? Drugs? Violence?) Why do I identify with the hip-hop culture? What is the message that I am given when listening to hip hop music? What does my taste in music say about me? Am I defined by society due to popular culture stereotypes? Is my judgment or perception on beauty along with different races, gender, and sexualities skewed by popular culture standards and stereotypes? What benefit or significance do I receive from consuming popular culture news? Does popular culture offer me any more than just material to fill my time with frivolous talk and gossip? How much time am I consuming because of popular culture? Why do I feel ‘out the loop’ if I’m not immersed in the latest trends? How am I empowered of my knowledge about popular culture news? Do I get sense of shared identity, meaning and purpose through popular culture? Does popular culture sell me as a

In the first chapter of The Rhetorical Power of Pop Culture by Deanna Sellnow, the author defines popular culture and explains the importance of studying the subject. Sellnow begins with a short explanation of ethics to convey that the influence popular culture has is not always used ethically. Secondly, Sellnow compares the different contexts of culture, elitist and diversity, to explain what popular culture is not. Popular culture is compiled of everyday things that influence people through subtle messages such as what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, and so on.

In ours’, it’s everything from MTV hits, to Breaking Bad to Miley Cyrus. But historically, pop culture derived from the lower classes and the “low” culture, the exiled counterpart to “high” culture. High culture was considered to compose of art, literature, and classical music created by and for the most prestige. Over time “pop culture” slowly began to replace the phrase “ low culture,” pop culture or low culture was defined by what it wasn’t; elegant, refined, high culture, than rather by what it was. Mass culture. The masses looked for entertainment and distraction, soon enough it was assumed for pop culture to simply just amuse. However, pop culture can never be dismissed as being “just” entertainment or for “only” amusement.

In a social experiment concerning radio music, a number of high schoolers were asked to identify the most popular songs (i.e the songs they believed were favored by the general opinion) on the radio. Additionally, they were inquired about the songs they happened to like themselves best. The result demonstrated a strong correlation between songs that the students perceived to be popular and their personal favorite songs. It is here that Adorno makes one of his most compelling critiques: “We know […] that the ‘plugging’ of songs does not follow the response they elicit but the vested interests of song publishers. The identification of the successful with the most frequently played is thus an illusion—an illusion, to be sure, that may become an operating social force and in turn really make the much-played a success: because through such an identification the listeners follow what they believe to be the crowd and thus come to constitute one.”

In the chapter “What is Popular Culture and Why Study It?” from the novel The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture, author Deanna Sellnow deliberates on the influential supremacy of popular culture in our current society. Sellnow wrote this passage to inform those affected by pop culture on a daily basis. Everyday individuals in first world countries are somehow impacted by pop culture. Pop culture’s influential power can often times mold our outlook on the world around us. It is important to realize when pop culture is trying to reevaluate your ethical beliefs so you can have a say in whether or not you want your morals to be altered.

Mark Twain, although quite the comedian, makes a valid point in “Corn-Pone Opinions”. The observation of humanity and its tendencies to follow what society promotes is a relevant occurrence today. Twain leads on “. . . that it’s born of the human being’s natural yearning to stand well with his fellows and have their inspiring approval and praise . . .” (720). Humans are not equipped to stand their own ground; they prefer to follow the leader. Twain puts it simply, “we are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate” (719). Twain clearly makes his point noticeable to his audience, holding back no opinion throughout the

The weakness that the bourgeois society bears is the same burden that helped them fall the feudal society (page 71). As well as the creation of those that will see its end, and hoist their own system, the proletariat. Through overproduction and an overabundance of industry, commerce, production, these forces no longer exist for the bettering of society, instead they hoist a select few onto their shoulders, creating those that have little and those that have a lot. The haves and have not’s. Creating the social dichotomy that will eventually lead to the collapse of bourgeoisie society.

All of these images of mass society have a tone of despair and depression. People are shown to be weary and confused, having lost the passion for life. Brautigan and Barthelme seem most concerned with the concept of a class struggle; their masses are poor and bitter. Kerouac is more concerned with the lazy masses that are brainwashed by television and suburbia. The only hopeful view of the masses comes from Ginsberg who sees a beauty in people that he feels is often covered and masked by the ugliness of society.

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.

Popular culture is a set of patterns, beliefs, symbolic structures, and activities that are well liked by a group of people, as a whole. These beliefs could almost be said as being shared by everyone. This popular culture is

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.

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.

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.