Pre-Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

1

Immanuel Kant gave his answer to this question in An Answer to the Question:"What is Enlightenment", a quite suitable title. According to Kant, enlightenment is about maturing into thinking for one self and cease to follow the comfortable guidance of government. And his belief is that the reason most people don't do this is because they are cowards.

And like Horkheimer & Adorno write in the first chapter of The Dialectics of Enlightenment, the idea was to replace superstition and blind belief with knowledge, however with this it failed horribly, and especially at the time this work was being written at the end of WWII caused by blind belief in Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party. 

The idea of Enlightenment was brought forth during a period that came to be known as The Age of Enlightenment in and around the 18th century by thinkers such as Voltaire. He criticised religion and promoted freedom of speech: " I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

2

H&A describes myth as synonymous to false clarity, and the antonym to enlightenment. Myth is a false belief lacking some logical evidence. When there is lack in enlightenment, we revert back to myth to fill in the gaps with fiction.

The contemporary definition of myth of myth is a fictional story, with some half-truth in it and often containing a heroic character. Like the Odyssey.

3

The old media is the classical music, paintings, theatres, and books. The authors argue that these classical media allows the listeners, viewers and readers to reflect upon the message themselves and make up their own minds, think about what they've just experienced and add their own imagination.

H&A consider the telephone to be a similar, liberal media type as the above, where it's actually possible to reply to what is being said in the other end.

Their view upon the new media is not mild, it is bitterly described as merely a tool to control the masses, be it fascists propaganda in Europe or the private capitalist monopoly in the USA.

"culture now impresses the same stamp on everything.

Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part."

The authors despise the way films with sound turns good literature into stupefying film scripts which is only rubbish entertainment for the masses. It leaves nothing left for the viewers to think about for themselves and all attention is needed to comprehend the predefined message being served.

4

H&A say that media producers are dependent on other powerful sectors such as the banks, electricity and petroleum industries: "In our age the objective social tendency is incarnated in the hidden subjective purposes of company directors, ...". The economical dependence controls the content. Anything produced must first be approved of by those in charge. Working in the entertainment industry requires appropriate pliability.

Like quoted in the answer to question 3, the industry merely wraps a commercial product into cheap uniform  and meaningless entertainment.

5

The authors mean that mass media is feeding its audience mass produced content with the purpose of keeping control of the population. While not at work or sleeping, they should keep their minds on entertainment and the products they will desire by watching or listening to the same.

The goal is to deceive the viewer into thinking that satisfaction is consumption and should digest whatever is served.

"Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where

it is shown. ... The liberation which amusement promises is freedom from

thought and from negation."

The authors equate "the mechanical repetition of the same culture product" with propaganda and writes that the Nazis used radio to give the German people a feeling that Hitler was everywhere and so this feeling overwhelmed the actual meaning of his speeches. 

"The symphony becomes a reward for listening to the radio...", again, the music is just a gift to make people listen to the message.

6

The authors mention television and predict that it will continue to drain culture from the content "...the Wagnerian dream of the Gesamtkunstwerk—the fusion of all the arts in one work." I suppose they were correct, today we enjoy Hollywood products in 3D in our living rooms. Movies look the same, basic plots, product placement and strange ideals.

They mention Orson Wells, though not in the same context. In his "1984" every citizen is strictly controlled and every home has a surveillance telescreen. TV is according to me still a means of keeping us occupied with meaninglessness while important things are passing us. Thankfully we still have some freedom in the internet, for now.