Culture and Communication

Frankfurt School and Critical Theory

The Frankfurt School refers to a group of German economists, social theorists, and philosophers at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, originally established in 1923. Influenced by Marxism and World War I, they were interested in elucidating the links between economic systems and structures within society, concerned with how capitalism produces and reproduces forms of domination, and ultimately driven by the purpose of emancipation and changing the social order. Their work was oriented toward examining conflict and predominant tensions between working classes and dominant classes. They recognized the abilities of the working classes to challenge and change the resulting social order, and therefore their work is credited as originating what is now called critical theory. Well-known members of the Frankfurt School include Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas.

As the sociopolitical landscape in Germany became dominated by the Nazi movement in the 1930s, several scholars immigrated to the United States and established the Institute for Social Research at Columbia University. They turned their attention from the role of activism and working-class movements to a focus on objective conditions and advocated for the role of reason and intellect in determining and changing the social order. They also began to address mass communication and media as structures of oppression in capitalistic societies.

The work of these critical theorists includes views of individuals as agents of change and attention to both discovering societal structures and then changing them through public deliberation. Trained primarily as philosophers, some scholars from the Frankfurt School emphasized intellectual and rational orientations to building knowledge about culture and society in contrast to focusing on popular or widely accessible aspects of culture.

In general among Frankfurt School critical theorists, culture is the communicative structure that reflects the social order; culture is revealed in texts and discourses that are produced by institutions, organizations, and public spokespersons. With regard to ontology (that which is) and praxis (practical action), critical theorists suggest that individuals have the ability and agency to advocate for change, and this often occurs in public deliberation and debate in public spaces.

Intercultural Communication and Foreign Service Institute

Another significant group of scholars doing work on culture and communication in the United States just after World War II included Edward T. Hall, a cultural anthropologist. The Foreign Services Act had just been passed by the U.S. Congress in 1946 to establish a Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in the Department of State. Hall worked at the FSI with linguists and other academics to prepare U.S. diplomats for their overseas sojourns.

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