What is the culture industry?
The term "culture industry" originally comes from the theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer who believed that culture has become standardised. This process of standardised culture has stemmed from a corporate ideology that is fixed on achieving the largest profits while ignoring the aesthetics and artistic values that culture embodies. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1999) The true aesthetics and artistic values that come from culture are meant to embody the individual artists who personally create works of art for the purpose of aesthetic appeasement and without a profit motive. Adorno & Horkheimer believe that the culture industry is built upon providing "safe and standardised products" that work to benefit a capitalist economy by being able to reach the largest possible audience. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1999) It is from this that the culture industry seeks to replicate or mimic the constrains of reality through the use of radio, television, movies and many other media. Through the consumption of capitalist controlled media Adorno & Horkheimer show that culture is now becoming extremely standardised and profit -driven to the point where it is hard to tell the difference between particular cultural products.
Adorno & Horkheimer's three major claims
1) Economic concentration of culture production in a capitalist industry results in a standardised commercial commodity (Ironstone, 2013)
2) In contrast to the free and autonomous art, commodity consumer culture is repetitive and unchallenging (Ironstone, 2013)
3) Drawing on Freud's psychological theories, cultural consumption has become passive, leading to 'obedient' types of social behavior (Ironstone, 2013)
Using these three major claims I will be applying Adorno & Horkheimer's theory on the culture industry to parts of the music industry that exhibit characteristics of "standardisation", the "pseudo individual", which leads to the "regressive consumption" of cultural commodities. (Ironstone, 2013)
2) In contrast to the free and autonomous art, commodity consumer culture is repetitive and unchallenging (Ironstone, 2013)
3) Drawing on Freud's psychological theories, cultural consumption has become passive, leading to 'obedient' types of social behavior (Ironstone, 2013)
Using these three major claims I will be applying Adorno & Horkheimer's theory on the culture industry to parts of the music industry that exhibit characteristics of "standardisation", the "pseudo individual", which leads to the "regressive consumption" of cultural commodities. (Ironstone, 2013)