Week 6, Production of Pop Culture Flashcards
What is the relationship between economic success and artistic quality?
It’s seen as an inverse relationship, the greater the artistic quality, the less money is made from or invested in.
However this idea of the inverse relationship is criticized for being too simplistic in addition to being elitist.
Cultural Industries refer to
the production of culture, goods, services, and experiences as commodities. Acknowledges institutions, technological and economical systems in place that produce culture.
Horkheimer and Adorno say Culture _____ while Garnam describes it as Culture ______.
Horkheimer and Adorno say Culture IndustrY (singular) while Garnam describes it as Culture IndustrIES (plural.
Culture Industry Thesis
Culture is product of institutions, is mass produced, standardized and commodified.
Consumers have no control over the culture industry, not that they notice.
Mass Deception
Mass Hypnosis
The greatest product of the industry.
Horkheimer and Adorno see this as the greatest danger to American Democracy. Consumer choices are not freedom but a distraction from one’s exploitation, perpetuating inequalities and exploitative conditions.
3 Features of Mass Culture
- Commodification
- Standardization
- Pseudo-individualization
Commodification
Transformation of goods and services into monetary value.
Standardization
of products and consumer response to those cultural products.
Illusion and pursuit of “newness”, newness is a disguise from sameness.
Pseudo-individualization
Disguised processes that “pre-digest” consumer choices for them/us, this idea that if you’re buying something you’re expressing yourself.
Illusion of choice, consumer choices have been pre-made for us by the industries.
Planned Obsolescence
In relation to Standardization.
New version comes out, the old version of the product becomes useless, like Apple of Hollywood’s “sequel machine”.
Principles of Amusement
Not thinking deeply about anything especially inequality and suffering.
Defends status quo structure of society and capitalism.
Horkheimer and Adorno believe that the aim of culture isn’t to
engage the public but to distract us from contemporary problems in our society.
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
Measurement of economic process
Horkheimer and Adorno have been criticized for being
elitist.
Pop culture could be defined as
what we do when we’re not working.
