Last week I never thought I would say this, but compared to this week's text, Russell was pretty easy to follow. I have read through the recommended chapters and will attempt to answer the seminar questions below, but while reading I really really felt large chunks of text floating straight through my mind without me ever understanding what the authors were trying to tell me. Fortunately, according to the course web next week’s lecture will “summarize the main ideas in the text and also situate it in the history of media studies”. I expect dramatic changes in the reflective post next week.
So, what is enlightenment?
In the broadest sense enlightenment is the advancement of thought, according to Adorno and Horkheimer. It is the process of dispelling myths and replacing fantasy with fiction. It is our constant effort to better understand the world.
What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
At one point Adorno and Horkheimer describes myths as false clarity. The name of the book is Dialectic of Enlightenment and dialectic implies one thesis is contrasted with an antithesis. In Adorno and Horkheimer's argument, myth, is the antithesis to the concept of enlightenment.
What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?
Dialectics of Enlightenment was written in the 40s, so it’s no surprise that what Adorno and Horkheimer describes as new media is different from what I would classify as new media today. New media, is according to them, for example film, radio and magazines. One of the newest media the authors are interested in is the television, “a synthesis of radio and film”. As for old media, Adorno and Horkheimer talks about art history and classical music. I assume old media, in their view, is paintings and sculptures, symphonies and operettas. Anything you can put classical in front of, really.
What is meant by “culture industry”?
As I understand is, the culture industry is the industry built upon manufacturing art and culture in a capitalist model. That is, the law of supply and demand is in effect. According to Adorno and Horkheimer the culture industry not only makes the popular products, (a movie or tv-program or whatever), but also somehow controls the demands of the audiences. It determines consumption, and “rejects anything untried as a risk”.
What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
According to, Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry endlessly cheats its consumers in order to infinitely prolong their interest in the culture industry’s products. In their view the culture industry suppresses and controls the consumers. I believe this is the mass deception the chapter Enlightenment as Mass Deception refers to. Mass media is how this deception is spread to the masses.
Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particularly interesting. Motivate your choice.
I’ll have to come back to this in the next blog post, but right now I’m fascinated by how the authors are pinning all the blame for their dissatisfaction on “new media” on the media industry. I agree that the focus of much of the media today is entertainment rather than enlightenment, but I find the way Adorno and Horkheimer writes about the culture industry interesting, and also a bit narrow-minded.
Also, the 17.00 deadline clearly don’t work well for me.
Hey you, I agree with your comment where you say Adorno and Horkheimer are slightly narrow minded. I had that opinion myself when I heard about their culture shock when moving to America. They were extremely critical of American culture and not that critiques are bad necessarily, but it's strange to me that theorists like these did not appear to come across more open minded - however, I realise I may have got the wrong impression of them. I am curious as to how much of their influences are attributed to being German, Jewish, white(?), middle-upper class(?) though.
SvaraRaderaI also think the authors are narrow minded, and have hard do understand there criticism. But with knowledge of the author’s background and in what time it was written make it somehow easier to understand, I think.
SvaraRaderaDo you after this week’s lecture and seminar have the same idea of what is "old", and "new" media? I think about the power the new media has, hand how it can "manipulate" people, or how it could be consider as a threat to culture and art.