MUS 114 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Walter Benjamin, Mass Media, False Consciousness
Document Summary
-> commodities: deterministic, how determined is our life based on the kinds of things that are produced for us, consumption, purchasing power, active or passive, passive consumers: not a lot of thinking going on; buy whatever produced, reception. We loose our creativity and live in a false consciousness. "the total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which enlightenment becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness. " - adorno, "culture industry reconsidered" (1963: walter benjamin 1892 - 1940, mass media and production create the context for public critique, consumption is a dynamic and active process. We develop our agency: popular media circulates in and through classes. "mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. " Signs & symbols: madonna: "like a prayer" (1989, the burning crosses at night, religious images: church, candles, crosses, statue of saint, police arresting the wrong perpetrator, capturing the black murder.
