Adorno notes Essay Example for Free

Adorno notes Essay surmise Adorno argues that Capitalism provides society with the products of a culture industry in order to keep them passive to their positions and clog them from questioning it. Capitalism uses culture as a way of securing the status quo by providing society with the norms and value of the dominant class.Popular culture is the reason for society being passive towards their positions and uninterested in overthrowing the capitalist system through reminding them that this is the way it hould be. Cultural industries produce unsophisticated, repetitive products rather than something which may lead society to question life. They produce programmes with hidden messages which be absorbed by the witness, enforcing the norms and values of the capitalists.False needs are created by the capitalist system in order to keep society in a still state, wanting something that they have been told they should want but that they do not need. This is created and satisfied b y the capitalist ystem age also working in their interest. In television, the difference between high and low culture further exists as it is so easily accessed by everyone and so class distinctions fade unlike the opera where it is just accessible to a few and so is still seen as high culture.Adorno uses the example of an underpaid schoolteacher who is alimentation in poverty but is clever and so the underlying message is that she will be sanction because she is intelligent. He argues how dangerous the use of stereotypes are ithin television, he uses the example of a young, pretty girl who the viewer should instantly like because she is pretty, a pretty girl can do no wrong and so even when she does do wrong, she gets off very lightly with it.Lecture notes Critical conjecture not clear-sighted on television not for effect of violence/propaganda Mass listening same thing sell at the same time, different to live/art TV entertainment, not art = big audience = big profit r epetitive, series, seasons, run on investment hrough ad Compound industrial form, tv is aggregation of radio/film/plays/ music/novels Dumbling down? tv is art, freedom of the art to express anything, mass culture, makes money, profits, advertising Critique of ideology obscures real conditions of existence, smooths over issues/contradictions, system of ideas for everyone, relies on compliance of workers with system Critical theory commercial/ capital interests dominate Critique/opposition/reason suppressed TV more labyrinthine more layers, can be critical