What is the Frankfurt School Critical Theory?

Frankfurt School is rooted in critical theory, which approaches humanistic questions in sociology and culture in relation to existing power structures. The perspective of this theoretical framework is that social ills, such as inequality and imbalance of power across diverse groups, spring from the structures that control social behavior rather than actions by any particular individual, no matter how power they hold. The Frankfurt School rebuts the Marxist position that a capitalist society will destroy and reorganize itself due to the opposing forces in politics and economics, taking down the bourgeoisie as the proletariat revolts. When Marx’s prediction failed to materialize, intellectuals from the School started looking at the cultural and ideological forces at play, which had been neglected by the German philosopher.

Cultural critic Walter Benjamin explored the relationships between art, politics, and the economic mode of production, paving the way for inferences regarding the influence each of these disciplines had on one another. In one of his theses, Benjamin opined that fascism gains success by aestheticizing or romanticizing political positions, no matter how morally or objectively reprehensible they may be. He also ascribed the reproducibility of works of art, made possible by technological advancements at the time, to the rise of fascism, as the ritual function of traditional art disappears and gets replaced by a political one. On the other side of the fence, the communist response is to reverse the process – to politicize art. Other thinkers within the School such as Horkheimer and Adorno proposed that the industrialization of art, at a time when everything else is undergoing the same process, made possible a new avenue for propaganda and mass indoctrination while bringing on the decline of avant-garde art as social critique (Strickland, 2007).

What is the meaning of ideology?

Hall (1980) in his working papers on culture and media cited varying definitions of ideology. For Veron, it was a system of coding reality, likening to a program on a computer that determines the consistency of an input with the tenets of said ideology. Althusser on the other hand viewed it as representations of relationships between individuals and their real world conditions, highlighting the structural roots of ideology, rather than the messages contained within it. For Eco, it is the universe of knowledge held by the receiver and his social unit, giving the concept a sociological perspective. This system is further broken down into one of signs, and meaning is shared between adherents of a certain ideology through semiotic code.

How media perpetuates ideology

The role of media comes in the circulation and establishment of ideological positions into social dominance, so that it becomes embedded into the culture of its audience as a norm. Therefore, the media are always vulnerable to questions of credibility, bias and distortion, especially in the telling of political and social events which clashed with the ideological program. This ties back to critical theory, where the privileged position of media, whether political, economic, or social, within any given society can perpetuate social structures and power dynamics, regardless of how unbalanced they may be.

Reflection

In reading the materials provided, I have learned the intricacy of relationships between culture, media, and ideology, and how they all come together for or against the empowerment of society. Different communities have their own cultural norms, which are influenced by the media they consume and the ideological messages they are exposed to during the process. Cultural theorists like Walter Benjamin examined the role of art in spreading fascist ideology, which calls for a natural social order, a diametric opposite of empowerment that aims to achieve an equal society. But then, how a social group responds to cultural manipulations for political agendas depends on their own cultural values, and anything that veers too far will not be favorably received, and thus will have no measurable impact in changing behaviors enough to accept new ideology.

For centuries, mass media have bridged the gap between culture and ideology simply by moving the goalposts. They have acted not just as mere apparatuses for information, but as catalysts for social change, without necessarily guaranteeing that these changes constitute progress. Over time, social behaviors change, and what is acceptable continue to be redefined by both prevailing and emerging discussions in politics, economy, and social psychology. The media’s role is in enabling a constant trickle of messages that slowly but most certainly move social acceptance of certain issues. This gave way to the social reform movements of the 1960s and 1970s. What was outrageous 50 years ago is considered the norm in the 21st century, all due to the power of mass media.

Political polarization and the erosion of democracy

In the age of polarized politics, however, we are seeing the erosion of the very same rights that many people before us worked long and hard for. And this is happening at breakneck speed, mimicking the pace at which present-day media technologies operate. The social progress made in the last six or so decades was destroyed in a matter of months, as ideologies spread far, wide, and fast to all corners of society thanks to the rise of digital media. The volume of messages transmitted and connections created on social media have exploded exponentially, allowing cultural change to occur much more rapidly than would have been possible in the age of primitive formats such as newspapers. The reproducibility of the art that Benjamin referred to many decades ago, which gave rise to fascism, has taken the form of memes, trading in fear of and alarm over the proverbial other – LGBTQ communities, racialized minorities, the economically displaced, the Indigenous, and the disabled, to name a few. And the list of victims of media-enabled marginalization grows every day, with every post, every news article, every broadcast.

References

Hall, S. (1980). Culture, media, language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79. 

Strickland, R. (2007). Cultural Theory: Frankfurt School Critical Theory. YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved November 24, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ULLZm_x_YE