In Thursday's class we will be looking at Adorno & Horkheimer's idea of the Cultural Industries. These are the systems which create and support cultural hegemony. The question we will focus on is: How is meaning constructed, communicated and institutionalized in popular culture?
From your reading what how are culture industries defined? Provide a concrete example from popular media that illustrates the characteristics and nature of your understanding of the culture industries and how this relates to the Frankfurt school's notion of how culture is produced. (responses must be posted by 7pm Wednesday to count for extra credit)
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A good example of a concrete culture industry to me is the advertising industry. They have tricked us into thinking we need useless consumer products, gadgets, and entertainment. Look at air conditioning it has only been around for a small fraction of history, but we are all conditioned and convinced we need it. They also try to show us what is allegedly acceptable and what’s in right now in our society. For Example: They try to tell us what shoes and clothes to wear with dramatic soul moving commercials. To what corporate teet sucking fake music we should be listening to (ex. Justin Beaver = sucky music, he hasn't even hit puberty yet, done a single drug, or lost his virginity, it cannot be real music). To what gas guzzling cool car we drive, the hummer is cool as hell but a soccer mom definitely doesn’t need one, I don’t care how hot she is. Even to what sexual fantasies we use and what we should classify as sexy. To what "legal" FDA approved drugs we should put in our bodies that we own. Once one thinks about it, soulless manipulating advertisements are everywhere with one agenda in mind "profit". They do not care about human nature, liberties, culture, or the environment. It's as if they're trying to turn this place into a zombieland of consumers who cannot think for themselves. Like Tyler Durden said, "The things we own end up owning us." Whelp that’s how I see a culture industry.
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