SOCI 1001 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Culture Industry
11 Nov 2018
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They saw the impact of fascist propaganda. The culture industry (or mass/popular culture) has one function: to reproduce incessantly the values of capitalist culture. They did not talk about culture industries, but a culture industry. Their argument is that under capitalism, all cultural production works the same way. Music, film, and sports, visual arts, are all in the same industry. Offered a more in-depth critique of media as a superstructure". They developed the culture industry thesis which has four parts: standardization. Culture is packaged in small numbers of predictable forms and genres. Produced by small number of large corporations. There is a great economic payoff of standardization. A small number of companies are risk averse, most are interested in ensuring that people will like their movie/product. There is simultaneously nothing new and always something new- this is perfect for capitalism. Nothing is new, so they are guaranteed profit: pseudo-individualization. Fake feeling that u are expressing your personality.
