4: The Franfurt School-Theorist Qoute

The Franfurt School-Theorist Qoute

“In our age the objective social tendency is incarnate in the hidden subjective purposes of company directors, the foremost among whom are in the most powerful sectors of industry – steel, petroleum, electricity, and chemicals” Theodor Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno was  born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund on September 11, 1903  and died on August 6, 1969 he was a German Jewish sociologist, philosopher  and musicologist known for his critical theory of society.

He was among the leaders of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, his works were essential to a critique of modern society. He is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's prime thinkers on aesthetics and philosophy, as well as one of its greatest essayists.

   Moreover, considering the aforementioned quote by Theodore, he is a big critic of mass culture ,he is proclaiming that the mass culture are highly subjective with regards to the directors as they use the industry to  produce or relay their own subjective ideologies to the detriment of the listeners who are ignorant about it, Hence increasing mass deceptions .

   In addition, Adorno thinks that the exceptional increase in the forces of production in recent times had an effect contrary from the expectation by Marxist theory. Adorno thinks the development of technology had increased mass deception and monopolistic control by the culture industry.

   Undoubtedly, the media can easily influence the public with their own hidden ideologies in the capitalist societies; however, Mass media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a huge number of sources such as TV, and magazines, to name a few. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes. Mass media makes possible the concept of celebrity: without the ability of movies, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of miles, people could not become famous.