The Culture Industry

response to Horkheimer and Adorno’s Essay:

One thing that I always find amazing in people who write about things such as 'the culture industry' and comment on culture and society is their lack of realization that they are part of this culture that they discuss in such a seemingly 'objective' way. The author's own absorption of the prevalent cultural zeitgeist and it's effects on their point of view becomes more apparent only with time and distance.

It seems to me that the ideas that Horkheimer and Adorno focus on in their deconstruction of the 'culture' and media industry are almost cliched among the cultural landscape that we know was 1944. Fascism, The use of propaganda, the image of a few powerful men handing down fodder for the ignorant masses, and anti semitisim (Culture monopolies as producing a specific type of commodity which anyhow is still too closely bound up with easy-going liberalism and Jewish intellectuals). These ideas are very relevant in a dissection of the media industry of the 1940's. Hitler had just shown the world the immense power of propaganda machines. There was anti-semitism left in the air, as the Nazi's had not yet been totally extinguished. The media industry was still more Jew run, as immigrants built the industry from scratch, and the studio system was much more restrictive in it's production of specific formulaic movies and stars.

However, this dissection of the media industry is about as relevant to our current cultural landscape as Jazz (which Horkheimer and Adorno refer to greatly). Music, movies and technology in general have moved so beyond what Horkheimer and Adorno could have even imagined (as they say the rate of our technology growth id growing exponentially). The thought of personal computers was beyond their imagination, let alone the ability for the average person to produce their own films, records or newspapers (ie- blogs.) This 2-way culture movement makes it more clear just how gray the line is between culture, media, and observer. Consumers are also creators, making the argument for the ignorant masses hard to swallow. Aggregation of content online makes it easy for the public to have access to information (via google, nytimes online, etc.) that would have been hard to come by in the 1940's, when one's major (or only) source of up to date international news was the local paper and the radio.

The major machines of the culture industry still exist and turn out pc socially justified materials, Hollywood and Network TV, major record labels and etc. However, the fact that they serve a public more than the public serves them has become abundantly clear in their fight to remain relevant. Hollywood tried to cater to the public's needs in formulaic blockbusters and indie style films alike, in hopes to keep their audience form defecting to completely indie sources on online. The record industry's struggle to remain relevant in an age where music is available everywhere from itunes to myspace is well known. And the fashion industry's new frenzy to woo bloggers by giving them front row seats to high end fashion shows is a tangible example of the major 'culture industry's' awareness that now that the public can be heard, you better not try to ignore them.