The culture industry was first introduced into the critical theory of the Frankfurt school by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.It refers primarily to the Enterainment industry.The culture industry produces work of art whose every detail is tailored to the needs of mass consumption.
The term culture industry was perhaps used for the first time in the book Dialetic of Englightenment,which Horkheimer published in Amsterdam in 1947.In there drafts they spoke of ‘mass culture’. We replaced that expression with ‘culture industry’ in order to exclude from the outset the interpretation aggregable to it’s advocates: that it is a matter of something like a culture that arises spontaneously from the masses themselves, the contemporary form of popular art.(Theodor W.1963).
The culture industry fuses the old and familiar into a new quality. In all it branches, products which are tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption,are manufactred more or less according to plan.(Theodor W.1963)
In 1944 Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer wrote their critique of the media. The large amount of advertising,imagery,films and popular music for sale in America was very different to what they knew from living in Germany.Adorno and Horkheimer termed this as the cultural industry.
In his essay,’The culture indusrty Reconsidered’,Theodor Adorno writes,’To take the culture industry seriously as it’s unquestioned role demands,means to take it seriously critically,and not to cower in the face of its monopolistic character’.Thus,while noting,with Horkheimer,that ‘culture now impresses the same stamp on everything.(Adorno and Horkheimer 1994/1979)
Adorno also recognised that the standardisation of mass products had even to standardize the claim of each one (product) to be irreplaceably unique'(Adorno 1991)
The goal of the Frankfurt school was to highlight the central role that popular culture occupies in society. Frankfurt schools mission was to examine the apparent failure of revolutionary social change that had been predicted by Marx.Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer elaborated on the notion of a culture industry in the book Dialectic of Englighenment.In their analysis Adorno and Horkheimer argued that through television and film and radio the culture industries disseminated knowledge with massive effectiveness.
Adorno and Horkheimer used the term the culture industires to address what they saw as the capitalist driven entertainment industry.
‘They believed the collective output of Hollywood possessed no redeeming qualities-what they called rubbish devoid of intellectual expression,mere twaddle as they noted.'(Adorno and Horkehimer 1973)
They belevied the culture industries possessed motives,forcing people to accept what is supplied in order to suppress imagination.
References:
The Culture Industry (no date) Goodreads. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201385. The_Culture_Industry (Accessed: 13 December 2023).
The Culture Industry:Theodor W.Adorno,J.M Bernstein
Adorno and Horkheimer,1973:Dialectic of Enlightenment
