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This is a response to The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception by Theodor Adorro and Max Horkheimer (1944)

This reading was quite hard to understand at times due to it be written in 1944 which was well before my time. However despite the reading difficulty I feel I grasped enough of the points that they were saying in order to write a response to the reading.

Adorro and Horkheimer talk about how cultural chaos has now lead to a stamp been put on everything in modern life therefore resulting in society becoming standardized and all one in the same. I do believe in what they are saying because in today's society we are all becoming one. We all shop in the same shops listen to the same music and watch the same TV shows. Its the media relaying all the same facts and information to entertain us but in a different way to make us all seem individual.

For example lets take two music tracks

R Kelly's Ignition and Akon's Don't Matter both have the same rhythm to the song just different lyrics. So when did we become obsessed withe repetitiveness instead of questioning it?

''Society suffers a fall by the capitalist industry with other motives other than doing what they are meant to''

I agree with this quote as media industries are now more concerned over the money that comes from products than generating material for the consumers. When we look at the media as a whole everything is repeating concepts and aspects hence us walking and living in a standardization. Take an example of TV and how they are constantly reusing the same format and concepts.
Taking the pop stars concept it was just reused to incorporate two bands going head to head instead of one. Same concept same TV Channel same idea = repetitive.

A final thought from the reading is that Adorro and Horkhemer believe that the media create the illusion of individuality.  ''Individuation has never really been achieved''  This quote shows how we are all the same. When you think about today's society we all eat the same things, watch the same things and everything is generated by the mass culture leading us to become one society with just one way of life.

To sum it is safe to say that this reading reflects the society that we live in today considering it was written in 1944. It is now evident that we live in a society that repeats its concepts and we are just willing to adapt to this mass culture instead of asking why?



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