Frankfurt school on popular culture Essay Example For Students

Frankfurt school on popular culture Essay When people watched this film, little did they realise they were watching a modern day twist on a classic. More recently Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice was repackaged and adapted for the big screen. Classical music has been taken and remixed into modern day dance tracks. The dilution and mass production have even been extended to the realms of classical art. Painters such as Munch, Monet and even Van Gogh have been mass produced at all levels from expensive prints to i 3. 50 posters for a childs bedroom wall. All are available for the masses to enjoy at their leisure. Benjamin goes on to argue what whilst mass production can lead to consumerism, it can also be liberating for the lower classes to have access to specific items, previously only available to the ruling classes. According to Shills (1961) the growing volume of popular culture is more about ensuring that the cultural needs of the masses are adequately serviced; that there is something available for everyone in popular culture. It is not simply about providing more opportunities for exploitation of the masses as the thinkers of the Frankfurt School viewed it. Who is to say that the products or commodities being bought are not useful? The Frankfurt School frequently refer to false needs that are increasingly met through the participation in popular, mass produced culture, whereas the true needs of society are those that signify freedom from the oppression. There is a lack of clarity on two points here. Firstly, what is the difference between a true need and a false one? Secondly, how do we recognise what the true needs of society are? Strinati (2003) uses the analogy of a washing machine as an example. Since it is mass produced it must, by definition, be considered a false need. Washing machines, however, provide a very useful, time saving function. It can be said to be meeting a real or true need. Further, who is to say how we define or even recognise these needs? The Frankfurt School appear to be able to define societys needs based purely on their own ideological preferences (Strinati, op cit, pp 71). Further, cultural meanings are produced and managed at the point of consumption by people who are actively able to identify with and construct their own ideas and values associated with the product rather than being the passive, unthinking masses that Adorno and his cohorts suggest. People take from culture what they need through a level of participation of their own choosing. Fiske goes on to argue that whilst popular culture is produced by capitalist organisations, they have to work real hard at getting the masses to consume. Massive advertising campaigns do not automatically guarantee the success of a product. Ultimately it is the choice of the individual whether they participate or resist the advertising, they are far from being passive dopes (Fiske, cited in Barker, 2003). The Frankfurt School, whilst focusing on culture as a form of social control through which the working classes are blindly seduced into participating, by what Marx would call commodity fetishism; miss some very valid differences between the social groups they look down on. Differences between age, gender, and ethnicity add another important dimension to the culture debate. These differences will affect the extent of participation in a particular cultural product, the depth of meaning and value taken from it, and also the level of enjoyment gained. Society is diverse and the blinkered view of the Frankfurt School is somewhat limiting as an analysis of popular culture, as the internal meanings of cultural products are clearly not the same for everyone (Strinati op cit, pp 71). Antonio Gramsci, an Italian writer, politician and political theorist was the founding member of the Communist Party of Italy. His writings from a jail cell in Italy, having been imprisoned under Mussolinis fascist regime, were concerned with the analysis of culture within the Marxist tradition. Overpopulation EssayThey maintain that the revolutionary time that Marx so long hoped for has passed and that the only hope the lower classes have is to better themselves by tapping into the products and ideologies of their oppressors. Something that even Marx himself would have trouble digesting. Furthermore, the main thinkers of the School feel the need to define exactly what the needs of society are. The lower classes cannot think critically for themselves so must rely on the ruling elite to show them how to live their lives. Benjamin provides some light relief with his view that high culture is being mass produced for everyone, but this is still from an overly elitist position. Whilst Gramsci and, to a lesser extent, Althusser provide a slightly less elitist perspective, they still maintain through their concepts of hegemony and ideology respectively, that popular culture is a form of social control and a way for the dominant groups to maintain their status in a capitalist society. Both theorists wanted to eradicate economic determinism from Marxist theory that was still so apparent within the Frankfurt School of thought. Gramsci developed his theory of hegemony to stress the importance of struggle throughout human history and the role that popular culture played in the conflict. Hegemony describes the various modes of social control available to the ruling classes of which culture is but one strand (Ransome, 1992, cited in Strinati, 2003). Popular culture, as seen through the eyes of left-wing intellectuals, is inferior, negative and standardised. The people who consume it are uncritical, conformist and passive dopes. From such a narrow standpoint one can assume the Frankfurt School cannot see the other side of the culture debate. Perhaps if they had lowered their heads a little they would have seen the enjoyment, real satisfaction and usefulness that mass produced culture can bring to society. 2,394 words. REFERENCES Barker, C. (2003), Cultural Studies: Theory Practice. Second Edition. SAGE Publications Ltd. London. Storey, J (2006) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Third Rev Edition. Prentice Hall, London. Strinati, D. (2004), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. Second Edition. Routledge. Oxon.