You, Me and TV

In analyzing the Adorno and Horkheimer piece, The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, it became apparent that television and media aim to alter the social and consumer conscious of viewers. It is this alternation of consciousness that enables the “ruling block,” defined as advertising executives, production companies, and advertisers, to benefit from television programming as it guarantees their product or service a niche within the consumer framework of the viewing audience[1]. While considered, by many, an outlet of enjoyment and pleasure, television is more than an evening escape from the monotony of everyday life. Television is not a “no strings attached” service provided by production companies but rather an industry that centers on profit and, in Marxist terms, the control of the proletariat by the bourgeoisies. TV programming forces the “whole world [to] pass through the filter of the cultural industry;” and as a result, an individual's understanding of their needs for goods, services, and even an answer to the meaning of life is constructed under the hegemonic presence of the ruling elite (Adorno and Horkheimer, 126).

For many, the “cultural industry” as defined by mass media “is the embodiment of authoritative pronouncements” within their lives and the lives of others (Adorno and Horkheimer, 147). How often have we heard ourselves or someone else say “I saw it on television?” Unfortunately, the answer to this question is “too often.” Those living within the western world have come to accept television and film as the sole creator of popular cultural. Within the twenty first century mass media defines an individuals understanding of family, politics, religion, education, and our relationship to the rest of the world by the click of the remote. While this ideological dominance is often an outlet for capitalist ideals, it too provides a positive platform in which negative, stereotypical, and prejudicial attitudes may be challenged and awareness of global concerns made possible. Just think, how much less would you or I know about global events if we could no longer turn on the six o’clock news, pick up a news paper, or go online? Television programming, like any other medium, has benefits and drawbacks and as a result needs to be evaluated and discussed from a critical perspective before any fact is accepted as truth. This week I challenge you to ask the question “What have I accepted as truth as produced, on mass, by the cultural industry today?”

Kelly Mac.

[1] The expression “ruling block” was taken from Dr. Heather Tapleys lecture on the Adorno and Horkheimer article The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.