Frankfurt School

The Culture Industry and Mass Media

In The Dialectic of Enlightenment of 1947, Horkheimer and Adorno developed their theory on the culture industry. They coined this term to refer to the rise of mass media and other forms of communication whose production is industrialized. As a general rule, they argued, increase in technology led to an increase in the production of commodities, and this in turn enhanced the consumption of goods. As industrialization processes created leisure for millions of people, a large demand for cultural products emerged, such as film, radio, popular music, and the press. Assuming that this great number of diverse consumers has identical needs, the culture industry aims to fulfill those needs with identical goods. Therefore, through technical means of production and reproduction, organization and management, a small number of companies produce under monopoly a large number of products that seem different, but are standardized, making wide use of formulas, [Page 410]types, and clichés. In this way, media production can be controlled by large corporations whose targets are economical and political at the same time: earning profits by maintaining subservience to the system of consumer capitalism.

Before the advent of the culture industry, culture had a critical function in showing original alternatives to existing society. As culture became a business, cultural products such as films, broadcasts, records, or newspapers turned into stereotyped reproductions with minimal changes, having no autonomy. Occupying all their audiences' spare time and leaving little room for imagination or reflection, they foster conformity in language, gesture, and thought. Therefore, their political role has changed: They reproduce and support the existing society, providing ideological legitimation of capitalism. In this way, the culture industry manipulates consciousness, integrating individuals into the capitalist way of life. Its products become forms of social organization and control, criticism disappears, and opposition becomes ineffectual due to the elasticity and pervasiveness of the system.

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