Frankfurt School is group of German-American theorists, 1920s-30s -- first neo-Marxiann theorists to examine the effects of mass culture/consumerism on working classes: they consist primarily of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal and Erich Fromm
Devised theory of "culture industry" -- mass communication, media production -- the industrialization and commercialization of culture under capitalist relations of production: Hollywood, basically
The School noted the social and ideological effects of mass media in the U.S.
Mass-media productions exhibited same features as other mass-produced consumer items: commodification, standardization, massification
Popular media/culture resulted in populace control
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1948) (by Horkheimer and Adorno): film, radio, news -- all controlled by advertising and commercial imperatives, and served to make consumers slaves of consumer capitalism
The School generally makes sharp distinctions between high and low culture
Ideology forms the basis of media culture
Adorno stressed the need to examine television's effects on many layers
Marcuse viewed broadcasting as "part of an apparatus of administration and domination in a one-dimensional society" (p. 10). One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The "culture industry" is ruthlessly unified
"Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies" (p. 3) ... there is no room for imagination/reflection ... sound-film has killed it
The movie industry is as regimented and obsessed-over as any medieval architectural school: "everything down to the last detail is shaped accordingly" (p. 4)
"The unity of style [of every historical era] ... expresses in each case the different structure of social power" (p. 5).
The culture industry is all style, no…
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