The Cultural Industry in Relation to the International Events Industry - Essay Example

A critique of the Cultural Industry in relation to the International Events Industry The Frankfurt school, which refers to a group of Western Marxists including eminent thinkers like Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, developed an interdisciplinary social theory which provided a critique of culture and society-politics, and which is called “the critical theory”. The “culture industry” can be regarded as one of the main tenets of the critical theory. The term “culture industry” was first used by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment, published in 1947. The aim of this paper is to give a critical account of the culture industry in relation to the international events industry. Firstly, the Frankfurt School’s key arguments in regard to culture industry will be summarized. Secondly, these arguments will be evaluated critically. Thirdly, its relationship to the international events industry will be analysed. Main Tenets: In “ The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, the culture industry is first explained in technological terms. According to Adorno and Horkheimer (1994, pp. 121) “a technological rationale is the rationale of domination itself.” Thus, they emphasize the technology of culture industry, which is standardisation and mass production (1994, pp. 121). They mention the term culture industry second time in the context of public as they argued that the attitude of the public “is a part of the system, not an excuse for it” (1994, pp. 122). However, the relationship between the masses and the culture industry is not clarified in the article. In fact, the meaning of the “culture industry” was so elusive that Adorno felt a need to publish a new article, “The Culture Industry Reconsidered” in order to distinguish the culture industry from “the mass culture”. In contrast to the mass culture, which implies a culture that flourishes from the masses themselves; the culture industry denotes a system in which the consumers is ruled from above by means of technology (Adorno, 1989, pp. 128). For Adorno, the term mass media is not an innocent term, but it is a phrase specifically designed for creating the illusion that consumers are still the subjects (pp. 129). Furthermore, Adorno points out to the reification of human beings as the passive consumers of cultural commodities, as mere wheels of the machine of cultural industry. As human beings are debased in petrified relations (pp.129), they become merely numbers represented “as statistics on research organization charts” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1994, pp. 123). While human beings become uncritical consumers, since entertainment industry has left nothing to them to classify and imagine; the Frankfurt School’s criticism of culture industry gets sharper. In short, the culture industry refers to the commoditisation of culture by means of technology, through standardisation and mass production. Since the critical theory has a normative streak, the Frankfurt School condemns the culture industry and commoditisation of culture due to the fact that it leads to the reification of human beings. The Frankfurt School also criticises the culture industry for perpetuating the ideology of capitalism, which is liberalism, the ideology of business. In “ The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, certain inter-related characteristics of the culture industry are also delineated. According to Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry is characterised by its unity, totality and assembly-line. For them, the unity of cultural industry means that, besides politics, cultural industry is intertwined with economy. Adorno and Horkheimer, calls the culture industry as totalitarian because of its repetitiveness and language.They argue that, in the world of the culture industry, similar to human beings, words are also petrified; they become “trade-marks”, repetitive advertising formulas devoid of meaning and content. For Adorno and Horkheimer, the assembly-line character of the culture industry is in line with the totalistic and repetitive language of advertising. Major Criticisms: It is ironic that the Frankfurt School, which criticised the totality of the culture industry, also evaluates the culture industry totalistically. “THE” culture industry is regarded as a totalistic whole, not as the sum of various cultural industries with specific characteristics. Nevertheless, the critical theory fails to address historical, international and contextual specifities of “the culture industry”. The main problem is that the critical theory is opposed to positivism, and its theoretical underpinning does not allow Adorno and Horkheimer to resort empirical researches, which could have enabled them to dwell on the differences within the fields of culture industry. Adorno and Horkhemier’s theoretically high-brow attitude and heavy emphasis on theory make them dismiss all empirical data as reductive and dehumanizing. In fact, the anti-positivistic streak of the critical theory has already been criticized by critics like Göran Therborn who argued that critical theory has made a “radical break with science” (cited by Held, 1989, pp. 358). Moreover, it is also open to debate whether the culture industry is totalitarian, just because it used a repetitive advertising language. As a matter of fact, Walter J. Ong had already shown that traditional folk narratives has an oral-formulaic character based on repetitions. Unfortunately, Hitler and Stalin utilised the oral-formulaic character of traditional folk narratives in order to appeal the masses. The advertisement industry happens to share the same linguistic characteristics of propaganda and oral narratives. Repetitive oral formulas have been part of the culture for centuries and even millenniums, thus it is difficult to call them totalitarian and specific to the culture industry. However, oral formulas may have been used for ideological and economic purposes throughout the history. But, the cultural industry, which is the product of capitalism, just reproduces the aspect of traditional oral culture for its own purposes of monetary interest. Moreover, although the critical theory is supposed to be historicist and Marxist, the historical perspective, as well as the main category of class, of Marxism is missing in their critique. In fact, if they had a truly historical perspective, they could have seen that culture and literature had always been intertwined with ideological and economic factors. What has really changed was only the mode of cultural production. In feudal mode of production, the economic and ideological patronage of the court, nobles and church had enabled the poets, musicians, artists and etc. to create and sustain a living. In capitalist mode of production of the culture industry, mass production and standardisation have become the major mode of cultural production. In fact, the Frankfurt school’s negligence of Marxist issues and especially of praxis has been already pointed out by critics. As David Held (1980, pp. 355) argued “the critical theory shows undue concern for philosophical and theoretical problems, problems pursued at the expense of Marxist topics”. The Culture Industry In Relation to the International Events Industry International events industry includes mega-events which are high-profile, but short-term events which appeal to worldwide interest and generates economic income. As Maurice Roche (2000, pp. 27) argued the mega-events has at least two dimensions, as tourist events and media events. Since international mega-events can be considered within the realm of media events, it can be analysed within the field of cultural industry. In fact, mega events sell entertainment by means of high technology. If we think about the mega sports events, we can clearly see the development of technology and especially of satellite television have generated international audiences. Sports mega-events, besides selling various kinds of commercial products, have also created promotional opportunities for cities and even countries. International mega events like expos and the Olympics, with the help of advanced media technologies, have promoted a global consumerism and urbanisation. As Roche (pp. 126) noted, “expos played an important role, as tourist attractions, in stimulating domestic and international tourism and tourism as a cultural industry from the mid nineteenth century, and also in stimulating the allied popular cultural world-views of ‘touristic consumerism’ and ‘urban cosmopolitanism’”. C. Michael Hall, also showed the interrelationships between urban entrepreneurship, corporate interests and sports mega-events within the context of neoliberalism. He argued that mega events can be considered as one of the hallmarks of modernity and have contributed to the integration of “industrial and corporate interests with those of government with respect to urban development and imaging” (Hall, 2006, pp. 59). To sum up, although the critical theory has limitations, it shows that the culture is not an isolated and innocent phenomenon, but an industry which is closely intertwined with economics and politics. Mass production and standardisation, as well as technological domination have led to the commoditisation of culture. The critical theory provides a viable alternative to positivism and postmodernism and it allows us to analyse cultural products within the context of global economy and politics. Hence, the critical theory helps us to understand global contemporary trends and developments. International events industry is not immune from the commodification of culture and can also be regarded as a part of “the culture industry”. The analysis of international events industry shows the intricate interplay between the corporate, government and media since advanced media technologies have created a global audience for international events and espoused a touristic and international consumerism as well as urbanisation. References: Adorno, Theodor W. And Max Horkheimer, 1994. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, pp. 120-168. Hall, C. Michael, 2006. “Urban Enterpreneurship, Corporate Interests and Sports Mega Events: the Thin Competitiveness within the hard outcomes of neoliberalism”. Sports Mega-Events: Social Scientific Analyses of a Global Phenomenon. Eds. John Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 59-71. Held, David, 1980. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Roche, Maurice, 2000. Mega-Events and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture. London: Routledge. Read More