Mass Culture and Culture Industry

 Theorists of the Frankfurt School founded in Germany in 1923 have tried to show that the concept of culture industry transforms people and cultural expressions of humanity into commodities. “Mass Culture” is one of the main concepts developed and used by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno and expresses the general approach of the Frankfurt School. Adorno and Horkheimer talked about the concept of mass culture in their study called Dialectics of Enlightenment and later carried this definition to the concept of the culture industry. The mass culture and culture industry, which we can identify with popular culture, are articulated with capitalism through the marketing of cultural products and advertising. Popular culture is produced by capitalism. It is an artificial commercial and consumer culture that has become the liking of the masses. It is determined by the interest of the current system. Popular culture/mass culture has ensured the fragmentation and uniformization of human consciousness and the dominance of consumption culture. And these masses can easily be fooled by capitalism and the cultural industries controlled by capitalists. The culture industry uses media space to market cultural products and to broadcast advertising. In this case, today’s media institutions, which are only for profit and legitimize the system, create a culture industry and market almost every cultural product. The culture industry is also concerned with high art, insofar as it can only be commodified. Low works of art: They are temporary, superficial, and commercially produced works. In the culture industry, artworks lack depth. According to Walter Benjamin, before capitalism, handmade products were unique and carried a real aura. With capitalism and technology, the spirit of art and culture has disappeared. The purpose of the culture industry is not limited to making a profit. At the same time, it reproduces and strengthens the existing and desired mentality.

Through the culture industry, people internalize the norms and values of capitalist commodity production. Individuals who internalize the values of capitalist ideology are no longer able to pursue their own interests. Individuals who cannot follow their own interests are integrated with the system imposed by capitalist hegemony. This integration occurs when individuals surrender to the culture industry not only with their bodies and souls but also with their thoughts and the system achieves this by surrounding us on all sides. Adorno has a very passionate view of what good leisure time should do. Free time is not for relaxation and emptying our minds, but leisure is our primary means of developing and advancing ourselves in the pursuit of better quality and acquiring the necessary tools to change society. Free time is the time to watch movies to help us fit into the system, or to read books that would offer new insights on politics, or to listen to music that encourages us to reform ourselves and our collective life. Adorno says that in the modern world, leisure time is ubiquitous and the highly malicious entertainment machine is in the hands of the “culture industry” in Adorno’s words. The tastes and leisure activities of the masses equipped with cultural industries become homogeneous and the mass lives the lives of the culture industry. In their spare time, people do similar activities and they travel, eat, and take a vacation, in similar places. Modern films, televisions, radios, magazines, and social media, today, are designed to keep us distracted all the time, preventing us from understanding ourselves, and reluctant to understand political reality, in Adorno’s eyes. While we continue our lives without realizing our world, cinema shows us adventure films about an alien invasion. Pop music constantly focuses on the subject of romantic love, suggesting that we can only achieve happiness by meeting someone special. We want the things we desire and we want because the system teaches us like this. 

Capitalist civilization: It enters a period in which human values are barbarically destroyed and exploited through the culture industry that produces meaninglessness, similarity, and boredom. While modern society enslaves humans, also creates false needs for them. According to Gans; mass culture markets popular culture products that keep the masses awake and occupied. These products are the cultural products produced for people who cannot focus their attention for a long time. This culture is a homogenized culture that equates masses to mediocre. Now, the production purpose of the artwork is not aesthetic concerns but commercial concerns. In the production process, artworks are designed by calculating change values. Art ceased to be a human value and turned into a commercial value. Although pessimistic and unsettling, Adorno’s statements on the culture industry are realistic, current, and powerful propositions. 

REFERENCES

Akkol, M . (2019). Kitle Endüstrisi ve Kitle Kültürü Kavramlarının Frankfurt Okulu Düşüncesi Üzerinden Analizi . Uluslararası İnsan Çalışmaları Dergisi , 2 (3) , 49-64 . DOI: 10.35235/uicd.479057 

Yaylagül, L. (2018). Kitle İletişim Kuramları. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları