Question

How did members of the Frankfurt School see popular culture?

Answer 1

Popular culture is also known as pop culture. In the Western world, it refers to music, arts, film, dance, cyber culture, literature fashion, television, etc. it is representing the materialistic aspect of the society that is being consumed by the majority of the population.

The rise of popular culture can be traced back to the industrial revolution time when people moved from rural areas to urban and developed a new culture that was different from their parent's culture. With the innovation of mass media, the West saw changes in cultural and social activities. After WWII the capitalist took to the new strategy in marketing product that was consumer-based and targeting the young generation thus for their profits they were successful in creating a consumer market with newly invented things to different classes in society.

By targeting different classes of society various cultures emerged like media culture, consumer culture, and image culture by the manufactures to increase their profit by creating more consumers.

The young generation goes well with the popular culture it is widely favored and well-liked by many of them. The popular culture is constantly evolving, it has created a class system in the society as a high culture these include the works that are considered of superior value and low culture represents the lower class as seen in the capitalist society.

Adorno and Max Horkheimer were the two intellectual members of The Frankfurt School, they studied the danger of the cultural industry. The Frankfurt School,was established in 1923. It was impressed by the ideas of Karl Marx, Kant, Sigmund Freud, and others. As described by Adorno popular culture was not an authentic culture it is the production of capitalist groups. Through the mass production of cultural artifacts they attract and target the consumer as per their class. They are creating false needs by producing new commodities in the market.

Culture is an important aspect of human life it plays an important part in understanding what is followed from generation to generation. The new capitalist theory has developed popular culture that is accepted and liked by masses it is based on consumerism and is dominated by money. The capitalist is producing commodities and manipulating the minds of thousands of people creating mass culture. According to Adorno, the masses are unaware of what is actually behind the popular culture, in reality it has taken away the morality and produced conformity in a society where everything is pseudo-individualized and they are no longer producing culture. They are being controlled by these various cultures.

According to Frankfurt school, the masses are controlled by capitalists they bring in the market new commodities and people in the race of having the latest rush to the new products increasing the profits of the capitalists and gaining nothing as they do not produce any new moral culture.