Analysis 2: The Culture Industry

Elizabeth Novotny

February 23, 2010

Media 280

Analysis 2:

The Culture Industry

In their essay, The Culture Industry:  Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer discuss the culture industry in great depth.  Adorno and Horkheimer argue that the culture industry manipulates society into abiding by the principles of capitalism and “[obeying] the social hierarchy.”  Although the culture industry has changed due to the rise of new digital media, perhaps it can be stated that Adorno and Horkheimer’s essay still holds some validity.

 According to Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry provides consumers with what they are trained to want.  Due to the concept of standardization, the mass production of products that consumers are trained to desire are essentially all the same, “for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything.”  Consumers are led to believe they have a choice in what to consume, however the reality is that they do not—“[t]he man with leisure has to accept what the culture manufacturers offer him.”

Nonetheless, perhaps it can be argued that a direct cause of change in the culture industry can be derived from the rise of new digital media.  The development of blogs, forums and other forms of online dialogue has changed our status as media consumers.  A medium such as YouTube, for instance, allows viewers to comment on what they are exposed to.  Blogging has become especially popular now-a-days, allowing for direct expression of ideas and opinions.  The internet is unlike film, radio and television in that users of the internet can choose all at once what they want to watch, read, listen to and comment on.  In addition, the ever-popular social networking sites such as twitter and facebook enable us to comment on other users’ content.  As media consumers we now have more options and are given the opportunity to actively partake in what we choose to consume.

I therefore believe that the rise of new digital media is an element of diversification of the culture industry.  Opinions and reactions are emphasized and accounted for, as opposed to one person or a group of people deciding how the mass population should think.  Of course, one problem that could result from these new forms of digital media, however, is if people simply reiterate what the controlled forms of media emphasize.  That aside, new digital media is beneficial to consumers of the modern world.