Intertwinement of Culture Industry, Technology and Mass Consumption: A Scoping Review

Celik, Bilal

Abstract

This essay uses Horkheimer and Adorno’s work on the culture industry to analyze the link between technology and mass consumption. While the digital world has enormous potential to facilitate communication, transcend spatial boundaries, and promote free expression, the utopian promise of this world is undermined by their mirroring of real-world market systems, the exploitation of labor, and the blurring of the line between entertainment and consumption. The culture industry thesis provides a useful starting point for theorizing the digital world and explaining why this place has become a mirror of mass consumption. Within this scope, this study aims to provide conceptual clarity and to contribute to efforts of theorization, considering three main concepts, namely, culture industry, technology, and mass consumption, and correlations between them, which were analyzed based on existing literature.

Keywords

References

Adorno, T. W., & Rabinbach, A. G. (1975). Culture industry reconsidered. New German Critique, 6(12), 12-19. https://doi.org/10.2307/487650
Adorno, T.W. & Horkheimer, M. (1997). The Dialectic of Enlightenment, London: Verso
Akdemir, A. (2016). Globalization and Adorno’s industrialization of culture. Uludag University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Journal of Philosophy 26(26), 181-186.
Archives, W. (1943). Parker Pen Company advertisement; “Rationed in production to meet the needs of war” · Western CT State University Archives’ Digital Collections. Creative Commons Share and Share Alike Lincence Except Where Noted, https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/world-war-ii-in-life-magazine-/item/4648
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Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Sage Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526401502
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Boström, M. (2020). The social life of mass and excess consumption. Environmental Sociology, 6(3), 268–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1755001
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Gunster, S. (2000). Revisiting the Culture Industry Thesis: Mass Culture and the Commodity Form. Cultural Critique, 45, 40–70. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354367
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Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy. Social Text, 18(2), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-18-2_63-33
Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class. New York: The Macmillan Company.

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[1] Adorno, T. W., & Rabinbach, A. G. (1975). Culture industry reconsidered. New German Critique, 6(12), 12-19. https://doi.org/10.2307/487650

[2] Adorno, T.W. & Horkheimer, M. (1997). The Dialectic of Enlightenment, London: Verso

[3] Akdemir, A. (2016). Globalization and Adorno’s industrialization of culture. Uludag University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Journal of Philosophy 26(26), 181-186.

[4] Archives, W. (1943). Parker Pen Company advertisement; “Rationed in production to meet the needs of war” · Western CT State University Archives’ Digital Collections. Creative Commons Share and Share Alike Lincence Except Where Noted, https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/world-war-ii-in-life-magazine-/item/4648

[5] Aydın O. T. (2020). From Culture Industry to Digital Capitalism. Journal of Social Policy Conferences, 0(79), 277-298. https://doi.org/10.26650/jspc.2020.79.0003

[6] Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Sage Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526401502

[7] Berthon, P., MacHulbert, J., & Pitt, L. (2005). Consuming Technology: Why Marketers Sometimes Get it Wrong. California Management Review, 48(1), 110-128. https://doi.org/10.2307/41166330

[8] Boström, M. (2020). The social life of mass and excess consumption. Environmental Sociology, 6(3), 268–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1755001

[9] Feenberg, A. (2005). Critical Theory of Technology: An Overview. Tailoring Biotechnologies, 1(1), 47-64.

[10] Fuchs, C. (2014). Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time. Time & Society, 23(1), 97-123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X13502117

[11] Giesler, M. 2004. “Special Session Summary Consuming Cyborgs: Researching Posthuman Consumer Culture.” In NA - Advances in Consumer Research. Vol. 31, edited by B. E. Kahn and M. F. Luce, 400–402. Valdosta, GA: Association for Consumer Research.

[12] Gilbert, A. (2013). The culture crunch: Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Thesis Eleven, 118(1), 83-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513613500383

[13] Gunster, S. (2000). Revisiting the Culture Industry Thesis: Mass Culture and the Commodity Form. Cultural Critique, 45, 40–70. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354367

[14] Heidegger, M. (1977). The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.

[15] Hochschild, A. (2011). Emotional life on the market frontier. Annual Review of Sociology, 37(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-081309-150137

[16] Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T. (2002). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In G. Noeri (Ed.), Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 94-136). Redwood City: Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804788090-007

[17] Kirkpatrick, G. (2020). Technical politics: Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology. Manchester University Press.

[18] Kline, S. & Leiss, W. (1978). Advertising, Needs, And “Commodity Fetishism” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 2(1), 5-30.

[19] Laskar, M., H. (2021, Mar 24). Culture Industry and Mass Consumption. Doing Sociology. https://doingsociology.org/2021/03/24/culture-industry-and-mass-consumptionmahmudul-hasan-laskar/#

[20] Marcuse, H. (2007). One-Dimensional Man, London and New York: Routledge Classic.

[21] Mesch, G. S. (2009). The internet and youth culture. The Hedgehog Review, 11(1), 50-60

[22] Rezigue, I. (2023). The future of Entertainement: How digital technologies are revolutionizing the Industry? Medium. https://medium.com/digital-society/the-future-of-entertainement-how-digital-technologies-are-revolutionizing-the-industry-d645099f46bf

[23] Sassatelli, R. (2007). Consumer Culture. History, Theory and Politics. SAGE Publications Ltd.

[24] Shi, Y. (2022). Dialectic of Mass Culture: How culture industry shaped the masses. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220110.198

[25] Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy. Social Text, 18(2), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-18-2_63-33

[26] Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class. New York: The Macmillan Company.