Reflection Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

During this week’s lecture and seminar we discussed, reflected and listened to Leif Dahlberg and other students opinions on the subject of Adorno and Horkheimers book Dialectic of Enlightenment. It was fascinating to get a better sense of understanding how culture elite - such as Horkeheimer and Adorno and also other cultural critics from the Frankfurt School had become extremely powerful influential’s. The book - which was written by the two mentioned above – was written while they were exiles living in the US during the world war 2 because of their Jewish roots and also their political beliefs. During the period 1920-1930 many question about what went wrong due the fact that Germany was an extremely cultural influence at that period (such as Beethoven for example). Horkheimer & Adorno became influential for the reason that of their urge to dig deeper into the question trying to provide answers to "what went wrong" and how Germany had reached this point.

I feel that both the seminar and the lecture was of great importance for a broader understanding to the book and it was also interesting to be part of the discussion which showed that almost everybody associated the literature from the 1940s and draw parallels towards mass media today.

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” – the quotation by Karl Marx and conceivably an influential part for Horkheimers and Adornos chapter about Cultural Industry, Mass media and Mass deception. Dahlberg mentioned during the lecture if this “opium-thinking” could be compared to social media. Pacifying communities, stop the society and individuals to ask critical questions and also maximizing profits for the industry by controlling the masses. During the seminar we also discussed the Marxist theory, about base, material structure and superstructure, which are the parts his theory consists of. Where the base determines the superstructure (which is in almost most cases one generation behind) and how google is in a way doing the opposite, because of the fact that google controls the base. The base is the relation of production, while ideology, education, and laws determine the superstructure. My favorite part of the seminar was when we discussed cultural industry and the mass deception. That mass media should serve people as an instrument to enlightenment. Individualism was a definition many of us wanted to discuss, also the strive for mankind to be individualists, as well as the definition of the word. How we cannot determinate what an individualist is, how this is an illusion of being “not part of a group” which we in one way or another always will be. Despite of what choices we make there will always be someone with the same political thought, the same taste in music, liking the same colors as you do. Even though people are trying to take a path as not being a part of mass deception, it’s difficult. Additionally we discussed how Adorno felt concerning going to the movies, the fear of being amused by the same jokes as others, becoming a part of the same social body.