Adorno and Horkheimer The culture industry

From this lesson I have learnt about Adorno and Horkheimer. The class was put into four groups where we had to be Louis Walsh, Kelly Rowland, Gary Barlow and Tulisa. We watched some acts from the X Factor and we had to judge them on their image, personality, singing and where they would fit into the music industry? would they sell records?. My group 'Louis Walsh' voted Janet Devlin through. We said that she had a very beautiful unique voice, a shy/innocent personality which makes her likable and not cocky. She is only 16 so she has a lot of time to get even better. Her image is good she is natural and pretty. But her image will change as the show goes on.

A comparison to Adorno and Horkheimer's theory is the X Factor. The X Factor is a show where people can show off their talent, they arrive as themselves but if they get any further into the competition they get transformed in to a 'superstar' overnight. Their image will be transformed from how they looked originally to having nice hair and new fashion style, they get a complete makeover. X Factor is a capitalist institution who seeks to maintain the status quo. Capitalist institution is a system in which the means of distribution are privately owned or corporately owned. The X Factor is like a machine they produce 'products' to fit the mass audience. A good example of this would be JLS. JLS were transformed to suit the music industry and draw in the audience. A way of attracting a large number of female fans would be sex appeal. So JLS changed their image now and then of having low tight tops to show off their muscles and bodies.

JLS just the start of getting famous


Then they started to get an image of their own colours. This encouraged people to buy clothing of the same colour of their favourite JLS member.


Their image starts to mature and they dress smart but casual.


Then the sex appeal. The are topless to attract the ladies and can be inspiering for young males who wasnt to look like them.





The Culture Industry:

Adorno and Horkheimer adopted the term 'culture industry' to argue that the way in which cultural items were produced was analogous to how other industries manufactured vast quantities of consumer goods.

Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the culture industry exhibited an 'assembly- line character' which could be observed in the synthetic, planned method of turning out its product.



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