Lesson 1- Adorno and Horkheimer's theory

Adorno and Horkheimer adopted the team ‘culture industry’ to argue that the way in which cultural items were produced was analogous (comparable) to how other industries manufactured vast quantities of consumer goods. They argued that the culture industry exhibited an ‘assembly line character’ which could be observed in the synthetic, planned method of turning out its products. Adorno and Horkeimer linked the idea of the ‘culture industry’ to model of ‘mass culture’ in which cultural production had become a routine, standardized repetitive operation that produced undemanding cultural commodities which in turn resulted in type of consumption that was also standardized, distracted and passive. An artist that fits Adorno and Horkeimers theory is, ‘One Direction’, ‘JLS’ etc. This means that eventually the audience/viewers will reject everything that isn’t familiar; for example and artist that goes against Adorno and Horkeimers theory is ‘Ellie Goulding’, ‘Tracy chapman’ etc.