The document summarizes the theories of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno on the culture industry. They argue that popular culture produced by large corporations, such as films, radio, and magazines, has replaced the church as the dominant socializing institution that establishes societal norms. The culture industry maintains conformity and order by producing content that is identical, artificial, formulaic, and reflects the interests of wealthy media owners rather than consumers. This dominant ideology presented by the culture industry serves to keep society ordered in a way that can make oppressive political systems seem legitimate.

1. THE CULTURE INDUSTRY
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno

2. THEORIES OF THE CULTURE INDUSTRY
Note: this article was written in 1944
‘Culture Industry’ refers to the set of corporations that
produce culture (as compared to the oil industry, the
financial industry, etc.)
Dominant theory that the authors refute: the collapse of
church power, combined with new technologies, is making
the world more fragments and chaotic.
Horkheimer and Adorno argue that popular culture ("films,
radio and magazines") has replaced the church as the key
institution that socializes us and gives us the norms we
live by.
The power and conformity of popular culture prevents the
social world from falling into chaos and fragmentation.

3. MASS CULTURE
 Characteristics of mass culture: identical, artificial, inartistic, just
business, rubbish, standardized, mass produced, no real variety,
formulaic, interchangeable, repetitive
 Key characteristic of the culture industry: monopoly. Technically
this isn't true because there is competition between companies.
But the authors saw a system that was very hard to challenge and
difficult to enter. They see this system as very powerful, infused
with lot of money, and positioned to exert a lot of power over mass
audiences.
 They see consumers as having no particular power because they
are given limited options that reflect the interests of the wealthy
cohort that control industry.
 Agreement across corporations to conform.

4. DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
 Culture has become something manufactured, which we purchase
or passively consumer. Not something collectively produced.
 The industry presents a dominant ideology that keeps society
ordered. The authors suggest that the order imposed by the
culture industry in pre-war Germany allowed the holocaust and the
rise of Nazism to seem legitimate and acceptable.
 "The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture
industry" (42).
 "Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies" (42).
 "The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it
perpetually promises" (44).