The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

After reading this, I felt that Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s views were in some ways rather paranoid but in others incredibly insightful and thought provoking. The media is something which I always knew affected lives and I have always had some sort of awareness that it may be affecting me personally, possibly in a negative way. This is a point that Adorno and Horkheimer explored as they talk about the way in which an audience’s perception of the media has changed. At one time seen as an art form, audiences are under no dissillusion that this is the case in modern society as most are aware that the media is a business, out to make money. The fact that people accept this and allow it to go on is what enables the power of the media to grow.

The media, according to Adorno and Horkheimer is ruining high culture and folk culture by the creation of mass media products aimed at as wide an audience as possible, for example the X Factor. There is a distinct loss of individuality within mass culture as everyone in a particular market are brain washed into liking the same things as they feel like they need to fit into a mould. If everyone else likes the X Factor then they should too. Particularly the people working within the media itself need to fit into these acceptable moulds. For example, when Christine Bleakley left The One Show, the BBC replaced her with a woman who looked almost identical to her. The audience were obviously aware of this as they poked fun at this fact in various newspapers and magazines, yet on the whole it does not occur to the mass audience that this was not merely a coincidence but was a carefully planned move to ensure that the audience would not be disrupted by anything new and different, as difference and individuality, according to Adorno and Horkheimer is something that the media does not like to deal with.

Adorno and Horkheimer also felt that the media controls class systems by catering certain products towards certain people. They used the example of magazines. The cheaper magazines are aimed at the working class as they will have less money to spend on such things, whereas the more expensive magazines are aimed at the middle or higher class individuals. Knowing this, the media can decide what content should be included in which magazines, therefore controlling what each social class of people will be reading. Although I feel that this is a valid and carefully thought out point, I don’t entirely agree as I know that many middle class people will also choose to buy the cheaper magazines and vice versa therefore the idea that audiences are forced to read what is created for their market cannot be entirely true.

One of the main issues that Adorno and Horkheimer brought up is the major affect that bombardment of media has on society as they feared that people can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Films and television programmes pretend to depict ‘real’ lifestyles which makes an audience think, why is my life not like that? For example when a woman watches an episode of Desperate Housewives they will look up to the characters as idols and want to have a life like them, forgetting that these people and the lives they supposedly lead are not actually real. The boundaries between real and artificial are constantly being blurred as even shows that claim to be ‘reality programmes’ are false. Although it is usually stated in the credits of these programmes that some scenes were created for entertainment purposes only, it does not state which scenes they are referring to.

Although Adorno and Horkheimer, at first glance may come across as paranoid, they bring up some very good points backed up with well explained theories. I do not agree with all their opinions but this reading has definitely opened my eyes to the controversy surrounding the media and enabled me to question what is right and what is wrong within the media industry.