Reflection on Critical Media Studies

While reading the “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, mainly the chapter about "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as a Mass Deception", I could not help but thinking that these are the words from a person who is experiencing a major culture shock; and I was intrigued to hear that this was indeed the case. 

We can not imagine the torments these Jewish philosophers had been through during the Second World War, and then ending up (likely more by fate than by choice) in Los Angeles, USA. Not only did this pair of culturally very conservative philosophers find themselves living in a superficial pop-cultural society filled with commercials, mass media and a culture industry they obviously did not appreciate and understand. As this book was written and published before the end of World War 2 you can add to their frustration that they might be thinking they would never be able to return to the home country Germany, and by which they must have felt betrayed. It is not difficult to see where this shock comes from. In a state of culture shock it is very common to refuse and distance yourself from the new culture you are in. In my opinion this gives an explanation the very one sided opinions and arguments in favor of their own ideas of high culture.  

I very much enjoyed the lecture and the historical background of the texts we have read. It gives a much broader understanding of the text when you have a description and a setting from where the ideas have sprung. It was interesting to hear about the Frankfurt group and the high cultural level of Germany at the time before the wars. It would have been worthwhile to also read a text by Benjamin as a comparison to the negative views of Horkheimer. Benjamin was part of their group and tried to fit in and alter his writing to correlate to the opinions of Adorno and Horkheimer, although he did not always agree.

The seminar was great; it is interesting to hear the opinions of the peers and their views on the topic. Again, the insight and knowledge of Leif Dahlberg, really helped put a label and context on our sometimes rambling ideas and thoughts, and he was able to frame those various comments in the text we had just read.

It has been said before, but it is amazing how this text can feel so contemporary although it was in fact written 70 years ago. Sure, the media industry looks different today compared to then but we can all feel recognition in their descriptions. The soap operas still feel stupefying, and we can still feel pacified by the never ending supply of entertainment, which get nothing else done. 

During the seminar we discussed how everything today comes with a little commercial as an attachment; when reading your letters by email - who gets paper-mail anymore?, while watching TV-programs, while chatting or keeping in touch with friends on Facebook, and while listening to music on Spotify or radio-unless you pay yourself free of the never ending ads in our lives, etc. etc. Maybe Adorno and Horkheimer would consider themselves lucky not to have to live through “Top Model” and “2½ Men” on TV.