2. Critical Media Studies reflection

After the lecture and the seminar I can look upon this week’s topic with different eyes. The background information and the in-depth discussions during the seminar have been very helpful and crucial to get a better understanding of Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s critique.

By placing the reading, Dialectic of Enlightenment, in the correct time frame when it was written, we can clearly see a critique against the pop culture that emerged in the US. Adorno and Horkheimer, both two left-wing intellectual German philosophers belonging to the cultural elite, are suffering under the circumstances of being in exile after escaping from Nazi-Germany. They experience of a cultural shock with their fear of losing themselves seems to be the base for their thoughts.

When I was writing my pre-reflection, I pretty much grasped the concept of enlightenment and understood the critique against the pop culture, or in the words of the authors: “culture industry”. On the one hand, there is the concept of “enlightenment” which is an internal contradiction in itself trying to liberate us from myth. However, the myth of enlightenment is to find reason. On the other hand, there is the concept of the “culture industry” which refers to the pop culture and describes the commercialization and standardization of cultural goods to feed the masses. What haven’t been so clear for me was the link between these both. After the seminar I got some kind of “enlightened”.

Adorno and Horkenheimer made an attempt to critical reflect on how the culture industry becomes an industry which is used as an instrument to produce different kinds of myths such as science, progress or the illusion of individuality. When reducing culture to some kind of commodity of mass consumption, it becomes a form of manipulative social propaganda. In this regard, modern science is not enough for enlightenment or critical reflection. In other terms, “knowing” means to manipulate and do the god’s trick by looking down on nature. Individuality as well cannot be achieved in the culture industry, because of the loss of a public sphere, which is meant as a place of competition, where someone can create a following and become an individual. Instead of a public sphere we find ourselves in a black box where we lose ourselves in conformity. If there is even such a concept as individualism, I doubt if one can ever achieve it.

What the critical theory tries to seek, is to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them. With the enlightenment project and the aspect of asking critical questions against enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer tried to liberate enlightenment from itself. After placing all this in the right context of time I’m wondering, if they mainly tried to liberate themselves?

Applying these thoughts on the context of nowadays media culture, we could argue that new media formats like Social Media, which became a major part of it, are used as instruments to indoctrinate people instead of instruments of enlightenment to liberate them. While they create an illusion of a public sphere they establish uniformity and reduce individuality. I’m questioning if we are losing ourselves right now in the Social Web and if there is a way out to liberate us?