CULTURE INDUSTRY:Gramscianism on Communications Matters

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Theories of Communication MCM 511

LESSON 29

CULTURE INDUSTRY

On our previous sessions we discussed two neo-Marxist approaches to media studies. One is

Frankfurt school and the other in media hegemony theory. Frankfurt school was engaged in a

critique of the enlightenment. The extension of human freedom had turned into a nightmare the use

of science and rationality to stamp out human freedom. It also involves a critique of Marxism. The

school had been established originally to examine the apparent failure of revolutionary social

change as predicted by Marx , and in explanation of the failure they looked to the capacity of the

superstructure (especially ideas and ideology represented in the mass media) to subvert historical

forces of economic changes.

The emphasis of critical theory was on the culture of the mass media as powerful influence for

preventing fundamental change. In general the consciousness industry (media) has been an object of

sustained critical attention because ideologies of the dominant class had come to condition the

economic base, especially by promoting a `false consciousness' among the working masses and

helping to assimilate them to capitalist society. The affluence and consumerism generated by the

economies of capitalist societies, and the levels of ideological control possessed by their culture

industries, have ensured that the working class has been thoroughly incorporated into the system. Its

members are more financially secure, can buy many of the things they desire, or think they desire,

and no longer have any conscious reasons for wanting to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a

classless and stateless society. It links up with the critique of the enlightenment in that rational

domination is the domination of masses in modern capitalist societies. Its debt to the theory of

commodity fetishism is also evident in that commodities of all kinds become more available and

therefore more capable of dominating people's consciousness. The concept of false needs is

identified particularly with the work of Marcuse. It is based upon the assumption that people have

true or real needs to be creative, independent and autonomous, in control of their own destinies,

fully participating members of meaningful and democratic collectivities for themselves. The false

needs which are created and sustained, can in fact be fulfilled, like the desires elicited by

consumerism, but only at the expense of the true needs which remain unsatisfied. The cultivation of

the false needs is bound up with the role of culture industry. It is so effective that the working class

is no longer likely to pose a threat to the stability and continuity of capitalism.

Culture Industry

According to the Frankfurt school, the culture industry reflects the consolidation of commodity

fetishism, the domination of exchange value and the ascendancy of state monopoly capitalism. It

shapes the tastes and preferences of the masses, thereby molding their consciousness by inculcating

the desire for false needs.

It therefore works to exclude real or true needs alternative and radical concepts of theories, and

politically oppositional way of thinking and acting. According to Adorno the commodities produced

by the culture industry are governed by the need to realize their value on the market. Industrially,

cultural production is a process of standardization whereby the products acquire the form common

to all commodities. This means that the more cultural products are actually standardized the more

they are appearing to individualize. Its effects are profound and far-reaching:

The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness.

The drive to conformity tolerates no deviation from, or opposition to, nor an alternative vision of,

the existing social order. Deviant, oppositional and alternative ways of thinking and acting become

increasingly impossible to envisage as the power of the culture industry is extended over people's

minds.

The culture industry deals with falsehoods not truths, in false needs and false solutions, rather than

real need and real solutions. It solves problems only in appearance not as they should be resolved in

Theories of Communication MCM 511

the real world. These masses in Adorno's eyes become completely powerless. Power lies with the

culture industry.

Its products encourage conformity and consensus, which ensure obedience to authority and the

stability of the capitalist society system. The ability of the culture industry to replace the

consciousnesses of the masses with automatic conformity is more or less complete. Example: pop

music produced by the culture industry is dominated by two processes:

Standardization and Pseudo-Individualization

The theory of `commodification' originated in which the objects are commodified by acquiring an

exchange value instead of having merely an intrinsic use value.

In the same way cultural products (in the form of image, ideas and symbols) are produced and sold

in media markets as commodities. These can be exchanged by consumers for psychic satisfaction,

amusement and illusory notion of our place in world, often resulting in the obscuration of the real

structure of society and our subordination in it (false consciousness).

This is an ideological process largely conducted via our dependence on commercial mass media.

The theory of commodification applies especially well to the interpretation commercial advertising,

but it a wider reference. In general the more art and culture are commodified the more they lose any

critical potential, and intrinsic value distinctions are replaced by or equated with market criteria of

cost and demand.

Gramscianism on Communications Matters

From a "Gramscian" perspective, the mass media have to be interpreted as an instrument to spread

and reinforce the dominant hegemony... although they could be used by those who want to spread

counter-hegemonic ideas too.

Hegemony and the Media

This set of ideas will constitute the hegemony that will be expressed as the nucleus of culture. If

these assumptions are correct, we can conclude that the media are the instruments to express the

dominant ideology as an integral part of the cultural environment.

The works carried out by the mass media can be seen, then not merely as carriers of ideology that

manipulate and indoctrinate people with certain views. The media, as unwitting, instruments of

hegemonic domination, have a much broader and deeper influence- they shape people's very ideas

of themselves and the world, they shape peoples worldviews.

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