Culture industryaccording to Adordo and Horkheimer - Essay Example

? According to Adordo and Horkheimer, what is problematic about the ‘culture industry’? July 30, According to Adordo and Horkheimer, what is problematic about the ‘culture industry’? Adordo and Horkheimer coined the term the culture industry in their critical approach to the scope that cultural artists had adopted in the society. The authors perceived a different aspect from what culture traditionally entailed to a contemporary state associated with many problems. I, in this paper, discuss the authors’ perspective of the problems facing the ‘culture industry’ and incorporate critiques to the authors’ position. Dynamism identifies the general problem in the culture industry with changes in fundamental constructs and modes of presentation. In an example by Wolfenstein, patterns of gender presentation in the mass culture has been reversed and while the media previously communicated men’s “erotically aggressive” nature and a passive and defensive nature for women, the contemporary culture industry has reversed the communicated nature and offers a potential social conflict. This is because the society, especially the young generation is likely to be divided between the ancient ways and the contemporary creation of arts. Others may be torn between the social presentations and lose social identities in the media’s disorientation. Transition from the ancient culture to the current culture industry has also established art standardization and gained the power over societal psychology. These transition factors identifies consequences that limit the traditional concept of culture, that was to enrich the society through creativity, to a system of standardized products whose caption effect is based on peer-oriented influence instead of value in creativity. Audience power is also weak, in the contemporary industry, under the standardization effects (Adorno 2001, p. 160). Another problem that the authors identify with the culture industry is its expanding power derives support from “sociological structures” (Adorno 2001, p. 161). Diversity between the old generations that embraced the mass culture the contemporary set of intellectuals promotes the change. People who interacted with the mass culture have also succumbed to influence into the contemporary culture to promote the dynamism. Demand driven needs for perfect and presumed accurate information is another factor that has influenced culture into the current state of standardization and consumer passivity. The transition has also established a gap between cultural ideologies and dynamism within the society as observed among consumers. Artistic ideologies of the ancient society still dominate the mass culture while consumers have evolved to new cultural ideologies and this explains the notion of lack of absolute creativity and consumers’ lack of choice because of standardization effect. Appreciation of culture is therefore not based on the level of utility that consumers can derive from the culture but because of the level of rigidity, which allows consumers little choices for utility. Audience manipulation is another characteristic problem that the transition has established. Mass culture integrated the society through such ideals as “conformity and conventionalism” but the contemporary culture has established discrete positions in art and even though conflicts may be presented, there is no significant reality in them (Adorno 2001, p. 163). Unlike in traditional arts that resolved conflict based on need, contemporary art relies on predetermined positions that often fail to resolve conflicts (Adorno 2001, p. 161- 163). Adorno and Horkheimer, in their exile, identify commercialization of communication and culture as a key problem to what they termed the ‘culture industry’. The society had been reduced to consumer of mass media and cultural products in the business proliferated field. Self-interest was instrumental to the commercialization problem as the then president, Roosevelt, used the media for political reasons and the use was commercial. The period, according to the authors, also witnessed massive sale of mass communication and cultural products in movies and increased popularity of “magazines, comic books, cheap fiction, and the other flora and fauna” (Kellner 1989, p. 130). These commercial interests identify a major problem in the industry because of the diversified conflict of interest among stakeholders. In cases such as that of president Roosevelt, for instance, political and economic interest are likely to compromise quality, reality, validity and reliability of developed art and its associated information. political influence may for example determine a favourable information about the subject, contrary to reality, and easily induce unwarranted bias on the society, a factor that also support the concept of domination over the audience. Influential personalities also have the potential to use financial resources on artists and determine content and message in a developed and communicated art. Economic interest in the entertainment sector also identifies the problem of commercialization because the artists are vulnerable to economic interest and manipulate art to meet the interests. The economic interest is also likely to influence types of productions (Kellner 1989, p. 130). Khabaz supports validity of the concept of commercialization as a problem facing the culture industry. Commercialization concentrates power at some points and its characteristic of striving to promote and protect status quo is key to the subject because it guides culture and art to fulfil personal interest that may be in conflict with cultural needs. Political and economic power centres are examples and undermine culture, cultural power centres in the culture industry with the consequence of artists, and cultural events are compromised to undermine and destroy the ancient mass culture as the power centres seek their interests. Khabaz also supports commercialization threat to the culture industry through interest in profits (2006, p. 3). Relationship between culture and economic activities such as advertisements that puts pressure on the involved cultural aspects identifies the threat. Stakeholders in the economic activities establishes standards that must be met through the cultural products and shifts artists’ focus to the demands instead of involved cultural aspects. Culture, in these cases, must be designed to meet economic targets and this defines Horkheimer’s perspective that products of contemporary culture lacks real value because “culture today is not the product of genuine demand” but a result of distorted interest (p. 25). This scope of contemporary culture is also contrary to Adorno’s definition of the ideal cultural industry that should be independent from production interest and instead conform to culture and rationale for economic ventures. Focus on the target market and the need for sustainability is another factor that has facilitated the commercialization problem of the cultural industry (Khabaz 2006, p. 23-23). Capitalism and its effects on culture is another problem that Adorno and Horkheimer identify with the culture industry. They explain the industry’s elements such as “culture, advertising, mass communication,” among other forms as instruments towards capitalism (Kellner 1989, p. 130). This perspective takes the commercialization problem from further from economic and political interest in the society to personal pursuits against opponents. Evidence of capitalistic objectives such as “conformity, standardization, and deception” that aims at promoting monopolies is particularly common in the culture industry to facilitate self-centred economic interests (Kellner 1989, p. 132). Capitalism has further promoted homogenization in the industries and these features integrate to undermine culture through influencing distortion of culture. Passivity among consumers of culture-based products has also been a result of capitalism. The scope of the current culture industry that focuses on marketable commodities, with the primary objective of profit maximization, demonstrates capitalism. Application of culture for such commodities and motives have also increased in the society to identify significance of capitalization as a problem to the culture industry because as Longhurrst explains, commoditization in the industry has extended to all “aspects of cultural production and social life” (2007, p. 3). An example that Adorno offered in his critical approach to the industry is in music whose standardization include genres of songs, song identities, and elements of each song and such are the observable features of the contemporary music industry that has identifiable song types among the audience and each genre is further differentiated with distinct features. The influential features determine the audience’s loyalty to the offered cultural commodities and form the basis of passivity (Longhurst 2007, p. 4). Another fundamental feature of the capitalism problem to the culture industry, based on Adorno and Horkheimer’s criticism, is the existence of a controlling power that further establish consumers’ passivity in development of cultural products, the power of standards that determine elements of the products and their desired effects on target consumers. In mass art, for instance, production personalities command the power. Control into standardization and power over delivered content is common in films where technological developments have a significant influence. Technology has enabled and promoted integration of reality into art and dictated the audience’s expectation thus limiting consumers’ imagination and involvement in development of the arts (Bahr 2008, p. 60- 64). Coupled with the capitalism problem and effects of technology towards consumers’ passivity is the role technology in deceiving consumers (Horowitz 2012, p. 34). Other identified problems are the multilayered structure of the mass media, high-level pre-emption, and stereotyping (Adorno 2001, p. 164- 175). Adorno and Horkheimer also identify the culture industry’s problem in the industry’s support for “elite interest” (Berry 2012, p. 103). The authors identified methods from which the culture industry experiences problems or causes problems. The industry controls workers schedules and impose loyalty through managing worker’s routine and influencing their compliance. The industry deprives workers of leisure time and engages them even after official working hours. Artists are for example forced to submit to their employers or sponsors and may also forego their leisure time in order to meet desired standards. The industry also suffers from a high level of rigidity that undermines creativity in cultural production. Productions follow predetermined formula, stages and results are in most cases presumed, and consequences such as rewards are easily pre-determined. The level of rigidity also translates into the industry’s products and the audience can easily pre-empt subsequent sections of a product having gained exposure to a part. Entertainment of culture’s products is therefore based on what the audience anticipates and a contrary experience may undermine the derived value from art. Culture industry also faces the problem of compromised visions and ideals through its developed perception of achieved perfection. Processes in creativity therefore lack in the industry and attained utility is accepted for an ideal. Delusion and conformity are other problems that the culture industry faces. The audience is consequently obstructed from the truth and manipulated to reject new developments because of the standardizations effect. Contrary to expected effect of diverting the audience’s attention from real life issues, the culture industry offers a replication of reality and therefore focuses attention to the reality. Other problems that face the industry, as Berry explains from Horkeimer and Adorno’s works, relates to “voice of authority,” “depersonalizing human relations,” “models of comportment,” and “dulling critical faculties” (Barry 2012, p. 105). Adorno and Horkeimer identify diversified problems that face the culture industry and dynamism from the ancient culture form is the cause. Examples of problematic issues to the culture industry are social conflict, standardization, commercialization, and capitalism. Other issues that identify problems in the industry relates to slavery of workers, rigidity, undermined goals and ideals, delusion, conformity, diversion, voice of authority and depersonalization of human relations, aspects that are integral to the industry. These therefore identify the industry’s problematic scope. Works cited Adorno, T 2001, The culture industry: Selected essays on mass culture, Routledge Chapman & Hall, New York. Bahr, E 2008, Weimar on the pacific: German exile culture in Los Angeles and the crisis of modernism, University of California Press, London. Barry, D 2012, Revisiting the Frankfurt School: Essays on culture, media and theory, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Burlington. Horowitz, D 2012, Consuming pleasures: Intelectuals and popular culture in the postwar world, Philadelphia. Kellner, D 1989, Critical theory, Marxism, and Modernity, JHU Press, Baltimore. Khabaz, D 2006, Manufactured schema: Thatcher, the miners and the culture industry, Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester. Longhurst, B 2007, Popular music and society, Polity, Cambridge. Read More