Theodor Adorno & the Frankfurt School ZUR 393k: Effects of Mass Media Outline: 1. 1940s music industry 2. background to the Frankfurt School 3. key themes in FS writings 4. concepts from Adorno 1. Background: US Music Industry in the early 1940s The music industry in the U.S. in the late 1930s and 1940s Duncan MacDougald " "The Popular Music Industry" in Radio Research, 1942 - 1943 "The object of this study is to contribute information about the way in which the popularity of hit songs is determined by the agencies controlling the popular music business." "The making of the majority of ‘hits’ is largely predetermined by and within the industry . . . not by the spontaneous, freewill acceptance of the public based on the inherent merit of a given song.” Duncan MacDougald THREE key players in the music industry 1. Song writers or song-writing teams Cole Porter Harold Rome Alan & Marilyn Bergman Given “rules” to write by: 1. the melodic line must be simple and easy to play 2. the lyrics should either be “romantic” or “original” and tell an appealing story 3. the melody of the chorus should be 32 bars long 4. the song title should appear preferably in the song’s opening line or at least three times in the song 2. the publisher Role: audition a new song and judge its hit potential Leo Feist Broadway @ 49th, NYC Publisher’s judgments based on: 1. how closely the song matches earlier songs 2. the reputation (and past # of hits) of the writer(s) 3. how well the song matches the style of potential performers (big bands, orchestras, celebrity performers) 4. ...if a song looks like a potential hit, publishers can engage in a bidding war 60 music publishers in business in the early 1940s. Just 15 of those publishers produce 90% of all hits. Eight of those 15 are owned or controlled by motion picture companies. 3. the song plugger Role: a. to persuade popular bandleaders and singers to perform a song b. to persuade radio stations to give it airtime. (ideally 3-8x/night for 8-10 weeks) • 3-7 pluggers working for each publisher • 35-40 songs published each week TOTAL Top Chart Position # Weeks Song Title Date (# of Weeks) on Chart "YOU" 5/1936 #1 (1) 10 #1 Hit Songs from 1936, 1937, 1942 Tommy Dorsey Band #1 Hit Songs from 1936, 1937, 1942 TOTAL Top Chart Position # Weeks Song Title Date (# of Weeks) on Chart "THE BIG APPLE" 9/1937 #1 (2) 7 Sample lyrics: If you don't then your name is mud If you don't you're a social dud Everybody's learning how to do "The Big Apple" It's easy to dance your cares away The most important thing is just to let yourself go. "DIPSY DOODLE" 11/1937 #1 (6) 15 Sample lyrics: When you think that you're crazy, You're the victim of a dipsy doodle. But it's not your mind that's hazy, It's your tongue that's at fault, not your noodle. You'd better listen and try to be good. And try to do all the things that you should. TOTAL Top Chart Position # Weeks Song Title Date (# of Weeks) on Chart comparisons with current music industry • In 1940s: 15 major music labels in US • In 2010: 4 major labels--worldwide 29.85% 9.62% 19.13% 29.29% 2013 2. background to the Frankfurt School Frankfurt School • the original institutional locus in Frankfurt, Germany (Institute for Social Research) • a body of work (and a shared theoretical perspective) • individuals who adopt that theoretical perspective continuing significance of Frankfurt School • one of the first sustained, critical analyses of the impact of the changing media landscape • reminder that political/social events shape scholarship • "critical theory of society" -- theory that could explain both the functioning and the effects of mass media in modern culture. • claims “POWERFUL EFFECTS” • on society as a whole • on individuals within that society Frankfurt School Institute for Social Research (founded 1923) Felix Weil, first director Max Horkheimer (director, 1930 - 1950s) Theodor Adorno affiliated in late 1920s; formally joins in 1938 • 1936: Frankfurt School relocates to Columbia University (NYC) • 1941: Horkheimer and Adorno move to UCLA • Studies in Prejudice (1950) • 1953: return to Germany • Leo Lowenthal remains in US (Stanford & UCB) “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Walter Benjamin (1892 - 1940) http://mic.com/articles/120271/this-incredible-visualization- shows-just-how-many-people-died-in-wwii http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/holocaust.htm #1 Hit Songs from 1936, 1937, 1942 TOTAL Top Chart Position # Weeks Song Title Date (# of Weeks) on Chart "THE BIG APPLE" 9/1937 #1 (2) 7 Sample lyrics: If you don't then your name is mud If you don't you're a social dud Everybody's learning how to do "The Big Apple" It's easy to dance your cares away The most important thing is just to let yourself go. Hegel Marx Kant Freud Frankfurt School Influences FS used critical theory to: • critique the compulsive force of commoditydriven society FS used critical theory to: • understand the rise of fascism in Germany FS used critical theory to: • attempt to understand the tendency of the intelligentsia in the US to defend the status quo • “it can happen here too” 3. five important themes in Frankfurt School writing Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: 1. skepticism toward classical Marxist emphasis on class struggle as the mechanism of social change 2. critique of the value-free claims of positivist (empirical) sociology (see opening pages of “SCRM”) Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: 3. tried to address the social and psychological basis of modern authoritarianism Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: 4. question Enlightenment rationality or instrumental reason “Critical theory can be understood as a sustained reflection on the dialectical relationship between reason and freedom.” Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: (M. Groden et al., Contemporary Literary & CulturalTheory, 192) 4. question Enlightenment rationality or instrumental reason Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: • domination of nature • domination of humans/“human nature” (see Adorno,“OPM,” pp. 37-39) https:// www.youtube.com/ watch? v=k56NBsZXjr8 5. relationship between critical theory and aesthetics • importance of aesthetic judgments (aesthetics as the last remaining refuge for mimetic behavior) • mimesis = imitation, representation Five important motifs/ themes in FS writings: making aesthetic judgments 4. concepts from Adorno Theodor Adorno “On Popular Music” (1942) “A Social Critique of Radio Music” (1945) “The Culture Industry” (1944) • PRODUCTION TEXT • TEXT AUDIENCE Adorno’s analysis of popular culture Concerned with media effects on two levels: PRODUCTION (music/entertainment industry) • monopolization • “Films, radio, television make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. . . . . Under monopoly all mass culture is identical” (“The Culture Industry” 349). • structural standardization • repetition • pseudo-individualization • “glamor” • baby talk CONSUMER (Audience) “structural standardization aims at standard reactions” (Adorno,“OPM,” 21) work and leisure “Amusement under late capitalism is a prolongation of work. . . . [M]echanization has such a power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself” (Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” p. 361). “The paradise offered by the culture industry is the same old drudgery.” (“The Culture Industry,” p. 365) • explicitly critiques the rationale that media simply give the consumer what s/he wants • “The people clamor for what they are going to get anyhow” (OPM, 38). Entertainment and Pleasure “Pleasure hardens into boredom, because if it is to remain pleasurable it must not demand any effort" (“The Culture Industry,” p. 361) "Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness; it is flight; not--as it is asserted--from a wretched reality, but from the last remaining thought of resistance” (“The Culture Industry,” p. 367) “What is decisive today is . . . the necessity inherent in the system not to leave the customer alone, not for a moment to allow him any suspicion that resistance is possible.” (“The Culture Industry,” p. 365) “The most mortal of sins in this culture is to be an outsider.” (“The Culture Industry,” p. 371) ostracism Political potential for popular culture/popular music ? See Adorno on “social cement/psychic adjustment” “OPM,” pp. 39-42 “Theodor Adorno: Music and Protest” B. Ricardo Brown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-njxKF8CkoU&feature=related Political potential for popular culture/popular music ? Reception of FS Writings • many FS writings left untranslated from 1930s to 1950s • surge of interest in late 1960s and 1970s • Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man Two Primary Critiques of FS • viewed as conservative and elitist • critique of FS view -- total encapsulation of the audience / false consciousness • “retreat to the Grand Hotel abyss” “Spontaneity is consumed by the tremendous effort which each individual has to make in order to accept what is enforced upon him. . . . In order to become a jitterbug or simply to ‘like’ popular music, it does not by any means suffice to give oneself up and to fall in line passively. To become transformed into an insect, man needs that energy which might possibly achieve his transformation into a man” (OPM, 48)