Culture industry
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The term culture industry was coined by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973).
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The Frankfurt School
Adorno and Horheimer were key members of the so-called Frankfurt School, and were much influenced by the dialectical materialism and historical materialism of Hegel and Karl Marx, where events are studied not in isolation but as part of the process of change. As a group later joined by Jurgen Habermas, they were responsible for the formulation of Critical Theory. In works such as Dialectic of Enlightenment and Negative Dialectics, Adorno and Horheimer theorised that the phenomenon of mass culture has a political implication, namely that all the many forms of popular culture were a single culture industry whose purpose was to ensure the continued obedience of the masses to market interests. In The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), they postulated a modern form of bread and circuses — the method used by the rulers of Ancient Rome to maintain their power and control over the people. This new “iron system” filled leisure time with amusements to distract the consumers from the boredom of their increasingly automated work; they were never left alone long enough to recognise the reality of their exploitation and to consider resisting the economic and social system. This is a very pessimistic view of prevailing culture as an anti-enlightenment opiate for the masses and one which draws strongly on Marxism for its condemnation of what is characterised as being continuing capitalist oppression.
The theory
Although Western culture used to be divided first into national markets and then into highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow, the modern view of mass culture is that there is a single marketplace in which the best or most popular works succeed. This recognises that the consolidation of media companies has centralised power in the hands of the few remaining multinational corporations now controlling production and distribution. The theory proposes that culture not only mirrors society, but also takes an important role in shaping society through the processes of standardisation and commodification, creating objects rather than subjects. The culture industry claims to serve the consumers' needs for entertainment, but conceals the way that it standardises these needs, manipulating the consumers to desire what it produces. The outcome is that mass production feeds a mass market where the identity and tastes of the individual consumers is increasingly less important and the consumers themselves are as interchangeable as the products they consume. The rationale of the theory is to promote the emancipation of the consumer from the tyrany of the producers by inducing the consumer to question beliefs and ideologies. Adorno claimed that enlightenment would bring pluralism and demystification. Unfortunately, Man is said to have suffered another Fall, corrupted by capitalist industry with exploitative motives.
Elements
Anything made by a person is a materialisation of their labour and an expression of their intentions. There will also be a use value: the benefit to the consumer will be derived from its utility. The exchange value will reflect its utility and the conditions of the market: the prices paid by the television broadcaster or at the box office. Yet, the modern soap operas with their interchangeable plots and formulaic narrative conventions reflect standardised production techniques and the falling value of a mass produced cultural product. Only rarely is a film released that makes a more positive impression on the general discourse and achieves a higher exchange value, e.g. Patton (1970) starring George C. Scott as the eponymous American general, was released at a time of considerable anti-war sentiment. The opening shot is of Patton in front of an American flag making an impassioned speech. This was a form of dialectic in which the audience could identify with the patriotism either sincerely (the thesis) or ironically (the antithesis) and so set the tone of the interpretation for the remainder of the film. However, the film is manipulating specific historical events, not only as entertainment, but also as a form of propaganda by demonstrating a link between success in strategic resource management situations and specified leadership qualities. Given that the subtext was instrumental and not "value free", ethical and philosophical considerations arise.
Normally, only high art criticises the world outside its boundaries, but access to this form of communication is limited to the elite classes where the risks of introducing social instability are slight. A film like Patton is popular art which intends controversy in a world of social order and unity which, according to Adorno, is regressing into a cultural blandness. To Hegel, order is good a priori, i.e. it does not have to answer to those living under it. But, if order is disturbed? In Negative Dialectics, Adorno believed this tended towards progress by stimulating the possibility of class conflict. Marx's theory of Historical Materialism was teleological, i.e. society follows through a dialectic of unfolding stages from ancient modes of production to feudalism to capitalism to a future communism. But Adorno felt that the culture industry would never permit a sufficient core of challenging material to emerge on to the market that might disturb the status quo and stimulate the final communist state to emerge.
Observations
Critics of the theory say that the products of mass culture would not be popular if people did not enjoy them, and that culture is self-determining in its administration. This would deny Adorno contemporary political significance, arguing that politics in a prosperous society is more concernced with action than with thought. Wiggershaus (1994) notes that the young generation of critical theorists largely ignore Adorno's work which, in part, stems from Adorno’s inability to draw practical conclusions from his theories. Ardorno is also accused of a lack of consistency in his claims to be implementing Marxism. Whereas he accepted the classical Marxist analysis of society showing how one class exercises domination over another, he deviated from Marx in his failure to use dialectic as a method to propose ways to change. Marx's dialectical method depended on the willingness of the working class to overthrow the ruling class, but Adorno and Horkheimer postulated that the culture industry has undermined the revolutionary movement. However, despite these problems, the concept has influenced intellectual discourse on popular culture and scholarly popular culture studies.
References
- Adorno, T. W. Negative Dialectics. New York: The Seabury Press. (1973)
- Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. Dialectic of Enlightenment. London: Verso. (1979)
- Wiggershaus, R. The Frankfurt School: its History, Theories, and Political Significance. MIT Press. (1994)de:Kulturindustrie