Culture Industry By Horkheimer Summary

Karen Quiroz Munoz

Professor Buechele

Midterm: Question 2

In this paper I will discuss the "Culture Industry" by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and why they argued that audience identification with the products of the culture industry was manipulation. Also I will discuss Adorno and Horkheimer 's views of the possibility to have "authentic" forms of art produced through the culture industry. And lastly, how they define true works of art. Adorno and Horkheimer take an interesting stance when it comes to the rise of new forms of mass media. They believed the 'art ' was being sold and becoming a commodity and in doing so losing its autonomous. Adorno and Horkheimer did not agree with what could be thought of as mainstream media because

They state the following "films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system" which gives the a sense that they are categorizing all these forms of mass media. Adorno and Horkheimer believed that mainstream media is manipulating us into losing our imagination. The culture industry produces everything for us, in which case we no longer have to think of anything because they think for us. An example Adorno and Horkheimer gave was film. In film the story line and images are already given to us so we no longer have to imagine what will happen or what could happen. Oppose to reading a book, when we read our imagination has to do all the work, we imagine the characters, how they look, and how the story line plays out. For example think about how many time you have went to the movie theater and watched a romantic chick flick, and you feel like you already know how the story is going to end, guy looses girl, guy gets girl back, they realize they love each other, the end. Adorno and Horkheimer would argue that none of that is a coincidence, we have been manipulated to like and keep on wanting to see these same movies. Adorno and

For instance if we look at what we hear on the radio today, if we tune in to one station such as Z100 and listen to that station the whole day. We will find that they replay the same songs all day everyday with very little variation. Same goes for any other radio station, but why do we continue to tune in? Adorno and Horkheimer would argue that we are manipulated to tune in and stay within the status quo, because the very few times Z100 plays a new song and everyone is tweeting about it, we will feel out of place or as if we missed something. The culture industry is manipulating us into believing that these "new" songs are different but they are just recycled formulas. For instance when new songs sample parts of song olds, they are recycling the same sound and so we are basically paying for the same sound. Adorno and Horkheimer believe that true art is autonomous, and could not be sold for commodity. Also they felt that true art would highlight the inequalities of the status quo by pushing people to be critical and demands realms of