KS100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Culture Industry, Commodification, Antonio Gramsci
Document Summary
Commodification of culture; culture turned into commodity, but also through mechanical or technological reproduction into a thing which like other commodities can be exchanged. Primary motivation in production of culture becomes profit as with other commodities. Profit ensures standardization of cultural products: however, standardization only works if people want what it is on offer; standardization of desire. The culture industry gives us what we already want. Differences between products and consumers are "minor differences", nonetheless these differences are "fetishized" Popular culture; mass culture or culture industry: serious culture. Note no mention of elite culture: so, called elite culture or high culture is generally a part of culture industry. Popular culture has more or less vanished from na and europe: absorbed into. Serious culture is culture that attempts to the extent possible to reflect the world in which we live, rather than cover it over in the name of pleasure (i like it!)
