SOC 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Romantic Comedy Film
Document Summary
The cultural industry thesis theodor adorno and max horkheimer. They wrote their thesis during a time of war, specifically world war ii. It sparked their interest on how the media is a powerful tool. Culture is considered outside of an economy, a work of people who have inspiration, the bigger questions, etc. According to marx however, they are closely entwined. What we love and enjoy as cultural products have been delimited as such. The culture industry has one function: to reproduce incessantly the values of capitalist culture. Adorno and horkheimer argue that there is just one culture industry; everyone involved are doing the same doing. The thesis offers a more in-depth critique of media as a superstructure. Culture packaged in a small number of predictable forms and genres. Pop music sounds eerily similar in all forms. Produced by a small number of large corporations. There is almost simultaneously nothing new and always something new.
