Adorno and Horkheimer: The Culture Industry

On Wednesday's Lesson, we started by watching lots of different videos from this years contestants on The X Factor. We then had to pretend we were from a recording company and give our point of view in a professional manner. These where the elements we had to think about:

-Their image

-Voice

-Do they fit into the current music industry style?

-Image

-Are they individual?

-Do that have a personality?

-Are they marketable?

The Culture Industry

Adorno and Horkheimer adopted the term 'culture industry'. They adopted this term to argue the way in which cultural items were produced was comparable to how other industries manufactured vast quantities of consumer goods. They also argued that the culture industry exhibited an 'assembly-line character' which could be observed in 'the synthetic, planned method of turning out its products'. They also argued the idea that some music had been degraded by some other genres. For example: Opera music being degraded by pop music. Text taken from: Production of Culture/Cultures of Productions (ed) Paul Du Gay, Sage 1997.

How The X Factor changes people... 'JLS'

JLS have been changed since the beginning of their journey in The X Factor. At the beginning of the competition they had their own unique style and dressed how they liked. They also could sign whatever they were liked as they were a RnB band to start of. This was not the same once they got through to the live shows.
They were turned into a typical boy band that had a certain dress sense and that now sing pop songs.

Here is JLS in there first audition on The X Factor. Look at the difference compared to the final of The X Factor when they sang with one of the most successful boy bands

Westlife.

The X Factor changes the original talent the artists already have to make then in to marketable acts. JLS started as a group that wore casual clothes that had amazing harmonies and was unique as there was no other group like them at the time. JLS are now know for sex appeal and are known for pop/dance music. Adorno and Horkheimer stressed that the structures of economic ownership and control of the means through which cultural products are produced and argued that this directly shapes the activities of creative artists and consumers.They believed that if you did not have the typical image and music like the current market then you wouldn't make money (which The X Factor is all about) and wouldn't fit into the business.