The Culture industry and Pandora's Box

 

Adorno and Horkheimer (A&H) write within the specific framework of a moment in history when Hollywood and the corporate radio networks were a monopoly of mass media. A&H suggest that film, radio and magazines are all a part one super structure. A&H consider all mass culture identical under the monopoly. That is to say, they no longer need to mask their true intentions with the façade of art, these media’s are not art but instead they are a method of business with the ultimate goal of creating funds— Moneymakers. Culture is then an industry, a money-generating tool to be manipulated by means of technology, where technology then serves to manipulate society.

This super structure is enticing, drawing people into the assumption that it is necessary. The Industry provides reason to its importance by stating there is a consumer demand and then further strengthens the industry by providing this “need” with laborers. These laborers— the managers, producers, and directors of the media— are there to fulfill the industry’s need to organize.

Technology’s function is the manipulator designed by the industry. “It is the coercive nature of society alienated from itself.” Ownership of power is transferred to technology and those who control and produce it. Through the processes of standardization and comodification, the culture industry shapes society, by means of consolidating media companies. A&H suggest that the culture industry claims to serve the consumers' needs for entertainment, but conceals the way that it standardizes these needs, manipulating the consumers to desire what it produces.

 

A&H state that society cannot resist control because we no longer have control of individual consciousness. They describe how phones allowed for a sense of control making its users subjects they are active and liberal. The television does the opposite by only allowing for one-way communication. The T.V. feeds messages to its viewer, there is no discourse, and they are all subjected to the same broadcasts creating one single idea or thought. This of course is before the thousands of channels and networks found on cable and digital television broadcasts we have today.

I am currently sitting here listening to music on Pandora.com which led me to think about the structure and design of the site. Listeners create “their own” radio stations based on a particular artist they like and Pandora generates a playlist of artists whose music is similar to the given artist. It made me think of the consumerism and the Culture Industry Adorno and Horkheimer describe in their essay.

While listening to the selections generated on Pandora for my Radiohead playlist it made me think of the types of people I know listen to this type of music in New York City. I instantly thought trendy hipsters migrating to Williamsburg Brooklyn wearing skinny jeans with dirty greasy hair and oversized headphones. (I know not everyone who appreciates Radiohead has this particular style). But looking at the selections of music Pandora came up with Death cab for Cutie, Muse, The Killers, all of these bands do indeed have similar qualities, but none of these bands I would have listened to had they not been suggested to me. I thought of the type of following for this type of music. It is indeed a culture. A&H state:

Talented performers belong to the industry long before it displays them; otherwise they would not be so eager to fit in. The attitude of the public, which ostensibly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for it”

This was an interesting idea. A&H are basically saying that we as a mass culture have no freedom to what we find enjoyable because it is fed to us through the “culture industry”.

There seems to be only a limited bunch of groups in which one can belong to. All of these groups have already been categorized I see these distinctions in categories most clearly in New York City. Certain neighborhoods have certain types of people, all of which play into a code of dress, speak, and of course consumerism. My friends and I sometimes joke about becoming a “Chelsea boy”. A Chelsea boy can be clearly spotted: Tight designer T-shirt, designer jeans draped over a muscled body, manicured nails, waxed…everything and totally up on their pop culture. The neighborhood pushes these products to be consumed in a large way; spend enough time in Chelsea and you’ll feel its pull on you. I think this is what A&H are talking about when they say, “There is nothing left for the consumer to classify. Producers have done it for him.” The Chelsea culture appeals to the single gay white man. These men who have well paying jobs and because they are single have no monetary obligations toward family, so they spend it on designer everything, $45 dollar manicures and Prada loafers, the Chelsea culture is a money making industry. I understand that A&H are specifically speaking about mass media, but in today’s society “mass media” has changed from just the Hollywood movies and radio shows spoken of in the essay. Today’s culture is fed through multiple mass media forms, from traditional television and radio and now through the internet.

Adorno and Horkheimer speak of the culture industry in similar to the way in which Foucault speaks of power. Foucault expresses that no one can live outside of the power structure, A & H state the same of the media as if it were inescapable and all persons within society have no power to resist its force. Since our imagination of something “outside” of the culture industry is inevitably marked by the culture industry, we cannot oppose anything to it as “more free” or “truer”. I think A&H’s essay can be argued many times over, considering the advancement in technologies we have today that don’t help perpetuate the Culture industries hold over society but resist it. The internet is primarily a means of doing this, making communication easier with like minded individuals who share feelings of opposition toward the culture industry. Also the proliferation of underground media, via the web, the circulation of alternative underground cultures, fads and trends are not accounted for but perhaps supposed to be encompassed in the essay.