He claims that the culture industry promotes domination by destabilizing the psychological development of the mass of people who primarily live in capitalist societies. Adrono’s writing on individuality is relevant here as he assumed that within the culture industry, the idea of individualism was a myth, “In the culture industry the individual is an illusion not merely because of the standardization of the means of production. He is tolerated only so long as his complete identification with the generality is unquestioned. Pseudo individuality is rife…” (Max HorkHeimer and Theodore W. Adorno, 1977, “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, New York, Continuum, Page 154). This quote shows us that Adorno strongly held that within the culture industry people must conform to the “generality”.
The culture industry thesis defined both the production of cultural products and homogenized subjectivities. Mass culture for the Frankfurt School shaped faiths, dreams, needs, doubts, and fears. It also describes an unending need for consumer products. The culture industry produced cultural consumers who would consume its products and conform to the dictates and the behaviors of the existing society. Nevertheless, as Walter Benjamin pointed out; the culture industry also produces rational and critical consumers able to dissect and discriminate among cultural texts and performances.
Adorno and Horkheimer drew from Marx with regards to capitalism. According to Lorimer and Scannell (1994), “Following Marx, they saw the application of capitalist methods to cultural production as exploitative of the mass of the production” (p. 165). Adorno and Horkheimer believed that mass culture due to capitalism makes it homogenous. The audience then becomes homogenous and unified. Baofu (2009) further explains the culture industry as, “Popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods to manipulate the masses into passivity; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture make people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances.” (p. 184).
Even though both Adorno and Gramsci had good points and ideologies which still apply to the modern world, it is clear that Adorno had more to say about the social world we live in today. Theodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist who was known for his critical theory of society. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, this was a social science and cultural centre for promoting socialism and overthrowing capitalism. "It was responsible for the creation of the philosophical form called critical theory, which takes the stand that oppression is created through politics, economics, culture and materialism, but is maintained most significantly through consciousness." (Fagan, 1995).
PARAPHRASING ASSIGNMENT INTRODCTION Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno introduced the culture industry in 1944 at the Frankfurt school (Adorno and Horkheimer 1944:31). When we compare ourselves with people who are oppressed, whilst we have democracy, we than turn to think that we are better, and this kind of thinking is the driving force behind culture industry. The culture industry is the normalisation and the wrong isolation of items in our society, and the manner in which those items are measured. People have been normalised as companies tends to produce items which are seemingly what we crave for. In this case companies are responsible in the creation of our desires.
Due to the fact that art works are social subjects and not merely aesthetic objects, they can only be meaningful when considered as part of a bigger system of principles, practices, economies and exchanges. This is why, in order to critically assess the relationship between contemporary art and popular forms of entertainment, it is necessary to analyse the context which came to undermine such distinction: capitalism and corporate imperialism. Since the Second World War culture in a world scale has been increasingly dominated by the most consumption-oriented society in history. Capitalism stabilised in the developed nations, and in the capitalistic form of life existence is based in terms of production, distribution, exchange and consumption
For Arnold ,culture is “the best that has been thought and said in the world”(41). He see the popular culture as a sort of anarchy and this of can be rectify through the institution of education. The Italian philosopher Gramsci introduced the concept “cultural hegemony” to convey how cultural homogenisation happens. When people come under the influence of a dominant culture, they feel an inferiority of being the “other”(124). The ruling class rule by creating a fear in the minds of subordinates.
Each Culture was regarded as a traditional way of life. We can say that Culture is the embodiment of the way in which we think and do things. All the achievements of human beings as members of social groups can be named culture. Art, music, literature, architecture, and science can
Pop art is a form of contemporary art which has integrated both fine art and commercial art through modernization and varying artists’ views. Famous artist like Andy Warhol, was well-known as one of the forefathers leading pop art movement. He was an American artist that started the tread of this contemporary art. His art works included many forms of media such as hand-drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and also music. One of his art work which depicted the mass-production of Campbell Soup cans and Coke bottles, captured the clean-edge look by commercially manufactured object, this artworks make him rises in fame.
To paraphrase the economic impact study on Colombian cultural industries (Ministry of Culture of Colombia, Andrés Bello Convention, 2003), we may employ the UNESCO definition of cultural industry. In that definition, cultural industries have the following characteristics: • Their raw material is a creation protected by copyright and set on a tangible or electronic support; • Their products are mass produced and preserved, and distributed on a massive scale; • They have their own processes of production, circulation, and social appropriation; • They are organized based on the logics of markets and marketing, or have the potential to be