Frankfurt school view on industrialization of culture

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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics

Cultural and creative industries

5 ratings

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Cultural and creative industries

5 ratings

Main objective of this course is to trace the development of the Cultural and Creative Industries as an idea and as concept and to identify the key points of changes within it in relations with contemporary digital connected world. Another important task of this course is to provide the deep understanding of the difference between cultural and symbolic meaning products (such as films, recorded music, book and periodicals, online media content etc) and other kind of goods. This course will help you to: - Identify main peculiarities of cultural and symbolic goods in their difference with other branches of economy in terms of production chain, risks, relationship between different stages of production. - Be able to analyze cultural products and symbolic goods from the organizational, economic, business model point of view. - Be able to invent new business models and analyze cultural products in terms of their productions risk. - Be able to analyze cultural policies and creative industries/clusters policies. Main prerequisite to this course is to be able to produce analytical texts in humanities. Normally the course addresses all students of master level interested in peculiarities of media and cultural economy and management. This course is strongly not recommended for those who: - Analyse any market or industry only in microeconomic terms (supply and demand, level of competitions etc). This course is not about market but about peculiarities of symbolic goods; - Try to interpret culture only in terms of marketing and management (i.e. culture is considered like a simple good to be sold to the consumer). This course considers it more broadly like a human agency to produce meanings of everyday life. That’s why cultural goods are different and can not be interpreted exclusively in terms of consuming and need more or less state support; - Try to interpret culture like pure “art” and consequently are absolutely not preoccupied by organizational aspect of its working. This course uses a large number of concepts coming from different fields of science: political economy of communications, cultural studies, sociology etc. Some aspects of the course are commented by known scholars in this field such as David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds), Phillipe Bouquillion (University Paris 13 Nord), Bernard Miege (Grenoble Alpes University).

From the lesson

Theory of cultural industries

This module gives an overview of main theories of cultural industries. We'll also talk about theories of creative industries and notion of creativity in general. You will get “research optics” to analyze cultural goods.

Main theoretical foundations of cultural industry theories4:12

Frankfurt school view on industrialization of culture7:45

Political economy view on industrialization of culture6:16

Information and knowledge economy5:44

Main periods in contemporary theories of cultural industries7:34

The early school of cultural industries8:48

From cultural industries to content industries5:52

Contemporary challenges in digital world16:47

Creative industries and its origins9:07

Meet the Instructors

Iliya Kiria
Professor
Department of Media

The Frankfurt School view on industrialization of culture.

So, this view is based on the works of Walter Benjamin,

and two other scholars,

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

Of course Walter Benjamin has never been a part,

official part of the Institute of Social Fistung.

So institute where Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and some other people

created these approach which then later has been named as the Frankfurt School.

But Walter Benjamin has some interaction with

Adorno and they have some kind of message exchange.

So, and of course in a great extent,

the Frankfurt School is based on his approach.

So the most prominent from this point of

view work and the work most important for us and for this approach,

is the work of Benjamin there.

His essay, "The work of art in the age of it's mechanical reproduction".

So as you can see,

all through in the title of this essay it's about mechanical reproduction.

So using this approach of the multi copying the culture from the zero copy and of

course appearance of the initially reproducible art

because from point of view of Walter Benjamin at the end of 19th century,

we can observe the appearance of the first forms of

the initially are reproducible arts such as for example,

recorded music or such as especially movie.

Because movie it's that art which is initially reproducible,

which don't exist in other non reproducible form.

Yeah. And Walter Benjamin is questioning the loose of the what he called the aura.

So the lose of the aura,

the authenticity spirit of the art work when this artwork become reproducible.

Because once you're coming into the museum and taking

a look on a painting of the very known Leonardo da Vinci,

of course you have this aura around these paintings because this aura is based

on authenticity of this particular painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Once you will do copying of these paintings or

even non painted copies such as for example reproduction in books et cetera,

this aura from point of your Walter Benjamín will disappear.

Of course basing on this idea of reproducibility,

Theodor Ardono and Max Horkheimer in chapter of The Dialectics of Enlightment,

their prominent book, in this chapter which has been entitled the culture industry,

are criticizing the industrial approach, the culture in general.

First of all and first point of

their critique is that culture is becoming dependent on the way of capitalist production.

So from this point of view,

culture instead of being something transcendent from the society,

from the way of social organization become a part of the capitalist society.

And from this point of view propagate the capitalist society production.

Second point is that consequently culture is

progressively moving from the art toward the industry.

From the particular art,

for the particular people,

knowing what is the art, to the industry.

As the mass production of goods for consumer.

And from this point of view their reproducibility based not only on technical aspect,

but also an artistic aspect.

If you will read some works by Adorno,

he is trying to say that for example such music as jazz is based on improvisation.

And what is improvisation?

Improvisation is the particular reproduction.

It's using the same motives in order to make them a little bit different,

but motives are similar between them.

So it's trying to coping topics,

coping particular songs, copying other things.

So from this point of view,

the reproducibility for Adorno it's not only the technical reproducibility,

it's also the aesthetical reproducibility.

And of course Sashka and of

industrialization of culture is based on standardization of the production,

and the division of labor and as I said initially in the beginning of this week,

the standardization and especially the division of labor one of the main characteristic

which allow us to distinguish the industrial production from the craft one.

So, the entertainment in the capitalist society from this point of view

becomes the continuation of the work of the Labor or the exploitation for Adorno.

Just because once the capitalist worker, the capitalist hardworking,

after finishing his work day coming to

the store to buy I don't know the vinyl disc for example,

were some just songs.

He's contributing to the capitalist even by entertaining.

Because this disc is also produced by the same worker,

by other worker but

working or acting at the same model inside the same model.

Of course this is one of the most important point of critique for Adorno and Horkhereim.

And of course, the industrialization of culture as we said is based on this shim.

On this shim where the artistic creation by

artist is separated from the creation of coping.

Artist is just making a master copy or even the content for this master copy,

and then some particular person,

some particular actor we will see it later.

If this actor is the editor,

will articulate these artistic creations

with technical mechanical production from the master copy,

to the general mass copy.

And finally it will brings to culture practice.

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