The term Culture Industry was coined by two German thinkers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, in 1944. As per PK Nayer, the 'Culture Industry' is mainly used to describe mass culture forms. It transforms an individual from a thinking and discerning individual into an unthinking individual. The Culture Industry does not want the consumer to think but merely consume. In the Marxist's view 'Culture' is not an abstract thing that is created by an individual genius. Rather, it is a product of any society's economic and social conditions.
Adorno and Horkheimer have mentioned that the Culture Industry claims standards are based on consumers' choice, which is an illusion. Rather, the culture Industry decides what should be catered to an individual. In this cut-throat competition, the interested party uses various technological terms to manipulate people and help the culture industry increase its hold on people. Its manipulative technique alienates an individual from himself and herself which results in easy control of his or her consciousness that has the potential to resist the control of the culture industry. By sacrificing the distinction between the logic of work and the social system, it turns an individual just a passive consumer.
Since the monopoly of the Culture Industry exists only in comparison and the Cultural Industry itself relies on other powerful industries such as the Electric industry and the Banking Sector. That is why the culture industry cannot afford to neglect the appeasement of its real power holders. Consequently, it divides people into different categories i.e. red, green, and blue. Each category has provided something to consume that appears only different in style. For instance- the difference between any two films or any stories in the magazine is not based on the subject matter instead it differs only on style and appearance. This difference helps the culture industry to classify, organise and label its consumers.
The Culture Industry acquires power through technology. However, it hardly mentions that the "basis on which technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic holds over society is greatest". Instead, it formalized the procedure which can be seen when all products are proven to be all alike in the end. For instance- In a film, hit song, or soap opera, the specific contents of its entertainment itself are derived from them and only appear to be changed. Even the gags, jokes and effects are calculated and deliberately placed by an expert.
Nevertheless, this caricature of the Culture Industry, which promises style, does not amount to something which is beyond the genuine style of the past. In the Culture Industry, the notion of genuine style can be seen to be seen to be the aesthetic equivalent of domination. The unity of style expresses only the structure of social power and not the obscure experience of the oppressed. Furthermore, Horkheimer and Adorno mention that "The great artists were never those who embodied a wholly flawless and perfect style, but those who used the style as a way of hardening themselves against the chaotic expression of suffering as a negative truth."
Conclusively, The Culture Industry refers to a mass culture where entertainment and its forms convert an individual into a passive consumer. The culture industry, therefore, produces unthinking masses of people who accept commodified sentiment and entertainment as 'natural'.
Source:-
Literary Theory An ANthology- Juile Rivkin, Michael Ryan
Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory- P K Nayar
