Culture Industry

In today's lesson we were introduced to Adorno and Horkeimer's theory of the Culture Industry.  To help us understand this, we were put into groups and assigned to be an X Factor judge.  My group were given Cheryl Cole, therefore had to decide what types of artists is she associated with.  We had to watch various X Factor auditions and give hypothetical feedback of what we would say to the singer's face, while also considering to ourselves what we would do to change this artist so that they would sell.

As we were Cheryl, we initially wanted to focus on the younger singers, particularly boys, as they would appeal to the target audience of young girls.  We also thought a sob story would make people empathise with them, therefore also increasing their chances of selling.  Most of the time we decided we would change their appearance and target them to a specific audience.



There are three stages of Adorno and Horkeimer's theory:

Standardization

All products produced by the culture industry exhibit standardised features, therefore there is nothing spontaneous about the process.  The class decided that people just go through a 'Celebrity Making Machine', as it is repetitive and routine.



Pseudo Individuality

This suggests that products created by the culture industry make a claim to be original, but they only contain minor superficial differences.  Baudrillard suggested that 'nothing is original, everything is the same'.


Capitalism

An artist is seen as a commodity, with the aim to sell them, in the way how industries manufacture things on a mass scale, usually with an assembly line.  This results in a standardised and passive consumption by audiences.