Adorno's The Culture Industry (1944)

Adorno’s theoretical argument is arguably an interwoven Marxist critical approach, especially here where Adorno proposes a negative connotation to the impelling force of an advancing capitalist society/economy. Published in 1944 Adorno and Horkheimer who also supported this theory were subject to the very current changes regarding mass communication and the resplendent film industry and believed these such changes commodified these new cultural forms into a new and growing dominant ideology. Adorno distinguishes that capitalism and this new dominant ideology work hand in hand as a system, negatively exploitative. With the suggestion that once discarded, the human race may well achieve its full potential.

 There is an insinuation that within culture theory and these new cultural conditions, a process of selection in which executive authorities agree to the avoidance “not to produce or sanction anything that in any way differs from their own rules, their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves” (Adorno, 1944, p.1038). Adorno believed that those “whom are in the most powerful sectors of industry” had the monopoly and ability within this emerging capitalist state to cater the public sector as there was limited competitions “a heirarchial range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification” (Adorno, 1944, p.1038). This valid point of mass production takes into consideration the notion of false needs that have been generated by such cultural industries, profitable to the industry for financial gain and profitable to the individual through material gain. Adorno uncovers “mechanically differentiated products prove to all be alike in the end” (Adorno, 1944. p.1038) and uses examples from both car (Chrysler and General Motors) and film (Warner Brothers and Metro Goldwyn Mayer) industries; the successful act of advertisements and marketing promotions only stimulated further ideas to this commodity fetishism.

 

A pivotal point to Adorno’s argument is that under social conditions art can provide another vision of reality. By art he means genuine and autonomous art; Adorno again refers to the filmic industry and that “as soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished or forgotten” and likewise in music he examines “once the trained ear has heard the first notes of a hit song, it can guess what is coming and feel good when it does come” (Adorno, 1944. p.1039). So here Adorno argues that genuine and autonomous art engages its audience to a new status quo and that the rise in this cultural form has stimulated emotional connectivity which Adorno regards with cathartic ties and passive satisfaction. Relating autonomous art between the Romantic to Expressionist period he clearly notes that the culture industry “has put an end to this” (Adorno, 1944, p.1039) which symbolically makes him question the freedoms of contemporary social life.

Another aspect Adorno observes the media consumer’s influence and power involved in mass culture over their audiences, he describes their traits “designed that quickness, powers of observation, and the experience are undeniably needed to apprehend them at all; yet sustained thought is out of the question” he goes further to imply “though the effort required for his response is semi-automatic, no scope is left for the imagination” (Adorno, 1944, p.1039). The general consensus here in regard to the movie world is that such standardisation of these cultural forms has resulted in weakened individual thought and has slowed down thought in how we critically think; such freedoms of thought are restricted instead we are absorbed into consumer’s strategies. While discussing societies limited imagination Adorno blames this meaningless absorption of the individual on “the world of the movie - by its images, gestures and words” a procedure contemporary audiences seem immune to “products of the entertainment industry ... have taught them what to expect; they react automatically” and criticises further “the culture industry as a whole has moulded men as a type unfailing reproduced in every product” (Adorno, 1944, p.1039). It seems that this industry has a strategy [through popular goods] to determine cultural expectations and cultural tastes, purely for financial profit.

 Overall Adorno’s focus is on culture and in securing the contemporary status quo the freedoms of the masses it releases rather than maintains; highlighting the stresses of life under a capitalist economy. These life stresses are seen as distractions which are meaningless providing only short lived pleasures. However, real happiness would come from cognitive stimulation something the culture industry arguably opposes. By divulging in cultural ‘unsophisticated’ products such as using modern communications, the television to absorb them in a false reality we avoid real interaction between people taking for granted our real freedoms. Adorno explains the culture industry acts as a form of cultural escapism, and hence escaping the tensions of society in what he considers to be negative exploitation.

 

Adorno, T. (1944) Adorno The Culture Industry. London: Routledge.