This week we have read the first 4 chapters in
Dialectic of Enlightenment, a classic book in media science published in 1947. The
text was quite long and written a long time ago but it still was easier to
understand than last weeks reading. The book introduces some notions about the
enlightenment and myths but what I found to be the most interesting was chapter
4 about the industry culture and mass deception.
Adorno and Horkheimer are criticizing what the call the new media. It’s the
kind of media that is being produced for the masses in an industrial
streamlining way to maximize profits for the very few in control of the
industry. They think it manipulates the audience and the content the industry
produces will be “standardized” and therefore lose in quality and creativity.
I agree with them on some parts. The media is controlled by very few large companies and they can exploit the lack of competition e.g. News Corporation (now split into News Corp and 21th century Fox) who was the owner of the now abandoned newspaper “News of the World”. The newspaper became famous worldwide when a phone hacking scandal was uncovered the 4th of July 2011 and was announced it would shut down just 3 days later. In the following five days in USA, the story was told 84 times by MSNBC and 126 times by CNN but only 14 times by News Corporation owned Fox News. Fox News has more viewers than any other news channel in USA and a lot of power to sway the audiences’ view of the world.
I agree with them on some parts. The media is controlled by very few large companies and they can exploit the lack of competition e.g. News Corporation (now split into News Corp and 21th century Fox) who was the owner of the now abandoned newspaper “News of the World”. The newspaper became famous worldwide when a phone hacking scandal was uncovered the 4th of July 2011 and was announced it would shut down just 3 days later. In the following five days in USA, the story was told 84 times by MSNBC and 126 times by CNN but only 14 times by News Corporation owned Fox News. Fox News has more viewers than any other news channel in USA and a lot of power to sway the audiences’ view of the world.
I wrote in my last blog post (Question 6) about how
Hollywood movies often are predictable because they are produced by the same
pattern. A pattern the executives know is likely to make them money. We talked
a bit about this at the seminar where the studio always has final cut in a new
movie. Leif Dahlberg said the last Hollywood production without studio
interference was “Citizen Kane” which was released 1941!
Since Hollywood movies usually are the most popular, they could potentially reach a large audience with inspiring new creative movies but in order not to disrupt the cash flow, creativity gets chopped off during the process.
Since Hollywood movies usually are the most popular, they could potentially reach a large audience with inspiring new creative movies but in order not to disrupt the cash flow, creativity gets chopped off during the process.
It’s interesting how you argue about Hollywood movies as predictable with the same patterns in most of the movies. This is something that really bothers me, and I always scroll past these when they are suggested and recommended on different movie-sites (which often are ranked by – americans.). So tired of the American heroes, how they present the “bad guys”, Also the overkill action or exaggerated love stories with the predictable endings. I wonder if people get satisfied with these kind of manuscripts? Or if it is just a way to brainwash people towards “this is how it should be, and can be!”, just to make people feel sufficiently unsatisfied with their own lives. Although, Hollywood seems to be the dream for most of movie directors such as Daniél Espinosa and Daniel Fridell. But I wonder what underlies that fact? Could it be as Adorno and Horkheimer states? That it is, as you’ve written, the maximization of profits in the industry?
SvaraRadera