Culture Industry

In the Thussu reading he brings up the theory born from the Frankfurt School of ‘culture industry.’ The theorists from the Frankfurt School argue that the commodification of ‘cultural goods’ helped advance the capitalist structure while simultaneously subduing the rise of alternative forms of socio-political behaviour. While I can see the logic of opposite views that argue the concept of culture industry is overstating the influence of mass media and understating the individual’s agency over how they disseminate information, as a broad way to describe a recent step of our cultural evolution, I think it is an appropriate and accurate description. If ‘cultural goods’ is describing the mass distribution of books, film, and music-as it was in the UNESCO report of 1982, then I would say culture industry has become an even more significant trend since the original theory was put forth.

The formation of global and national media conglomerates has definitely narrowed the space available for other alternative forms of media. In some countries, 3 or 4 daily newspapers act as the main source of news information, and are sometimes produced by the same parent company. Musicians signed to major recording labels are at the mercy of their producers and label in terms of dictating the direction of their music. Movies are written and pitched to studios with money so filmmakers have the same sort of relationship to mass media markets as musicians do. The New York Times bestseller list, Billboard charts, box office charts, whatever form is used to track what is selling-always reflects culture industry. Our cultural products have become as Marcuse says, ‘one-dimensional.’ Yes, people have agency and an ability to make their own choices, but it seems like a large majority of people, myself included in some instances, choose to be part of the ongoing, deeply embedded consumption cycle. Isn’t this pattern of behaviour passive like Thussu states, and haven’t parts of global societies become subordinate to those in power and with control? Artists with cultural messages have themselves become subordinate by choosing to be a part of this structure.

And of course there is room for subculture movements, and there always has been and always will be. Maybe subculture can be seen as a response to this system, kind of like punk rock was, or indie is (but even elements of these subcultures leak into the mass media industries when the artists can no longer resist the monetary reward of engaging in it). Some people have less of a psychological need to engage in what everyone else is, but others lack such a filter. The mass media markets have capitalized on those populations and exported the same structures out into other countries. When I was living in Korea, I found it astounding that my little first-grade female student was listening to the same song and held it with the same level of cultural value, as a forty year old man. How can this be? It is because Korean media markets have followed the Western models and created media conglomerates that systematically can manufacture culture while at the same time strengthen the society’s idea of corporate power structures. It is even easier to implement in a place like Korea which is based around collectivism and psychological needs have much greater value than intrinsic ones, because of this idea of collectivism and moving/identifying as a mass.

One point that leaves me confused in the culture industry argument is that the theory seems to suggest that cultural values were once communicated in a form apart from a commodified good. Obviously, cultural messages are exchanged in the home and as part of our interpersonal relationships, that hasn’t changed. But, what form did the exchange of cultural messages take before media? Weren’t they still marketable commodities in a way? For example, cultural values distorted through messages from the Church, or values promoted through policies of the nation-state, or values perpetuated by inflexible social hierarchies. Although those cultural messages weren’t being packaged and sold in the marketplace, they were still benefitting the ‘ruling elite.’ I have a hard time wrapping my head around cultural messages and values that may have been transmitted before the advent of some sort of media, it just seems like the theorists are suggesting some great space of cultural value was lost because of the nature of mass media today. What and where are these marginalized voices? Some examples would have helped clarify to what extent the effects of cultural industry can be felt, and what exactly it means when our culture is being marginalized. To me, they are talking about lost opportunities to form artistic subcultures or anti-capitalist movements. These chances are out there and available but have just become diminished.