Various books, magazines, music, and games are cultural products made in the culture factory. The culture industry refers to cultures that are intentionally created and disseminated among people, which keeps us politically dominated.
Adorno here sees the cultural industry as a ‘mass fraud’. It is said that the products are produced for the consumer. But actually, products are produced for profit. Capitalism is the key. Cultural industries make people, i.e. consumers, dependent and enslaved to them. As a result of reducing our working hours, we consume these products during our free time.
The cultural industry also determines what we do outside of work. The main objective of cultural industries is to produce cultural products and keep us immersed in a consumer culture of cheap entertainment. They legitimize this culture by creating a desire and demand for a product.
The characteristics of cultural industries are mainly two.
1. Produces high-value products for the consumer
2. Disseminate it to the consumer by creating education, entertainment products
There is no need to present radio, magazines, or films as art. These are nothing but mere business. The monopoly of the cultural industry results in all products being the same. All production is entrusted to a few companies. The products they make are spread all over the world.
The cultural industry wants to control all kinds of consumers. We have to buy the product regardless of the price Consumers like it here, but it is not their choice. Because, for them, the product is predetermined. The cultural industry controls us through technology like radio, movies etc. There is no path open before us.
When people like a song or have a place in people’s minds, marketers use it as a product. Pop music turns people into passive listeners.
When we listen to music, we don’t try to understand it. The products of the cultural industry act as social cement among us. That is, a kind of visible wall is created. It creates unnecessary emotions in the human mind. Our creativity is wasted. Moral value is going to be lost.