Theme 2: Critical media studies (After)

I read the texts by Benjamin and by Adorno & Horkheimer. I also read a little bit on marxist theory on wikipedia. The previous theme and the reading I did then had given me an idea of what dialectic means. To get me started on some of the concepts I read about them in the Oxford dictionary.

I thought the texts for this theme were harder to grasp than the ones from the first theme. I realize that at some level these texts had more familiar concepts but the way that they constructed their arguments and turned their approach without explicitly saying so made it more confusing. This resulted in me making some false assumptions on which I based part of my "before" blog post. So at the seminar I did not have as much to contribute with as on the previous seminar. However I found that really satisfying. I had to think a lot harder to put my thoughts together and definitely learned a lot more. I feel like I have a good understanding of the texts now. One thing that I had anticipated to be one of my conclusions after the seminar was that these kinds of text must be read in their context. Understanding what kind of world they are written in gives a lot more understanding to their argumentation. I think that is something important to remember when reading contemporary critique.

For me the biggest lesson of this theme was how power can show itself in media and how different perspectives may be opposing each other in what way they see this power and to whom the power belongs. The fact that there is power in media is something that would be hard to contest. So ways to analyze that power is really interesting. 

I believe that the critique that Adorno & Horkheimer set out on was a little bit premature but of course relevant at that time. I wonder what they would have thought of todays media landscape with the entrance of the internet. Maybe they would see the popular culture that they were criticizing as only peripheral. Or would they see it as the central power around which the internet community revolves? From their perspective maybe the internet would not be seen as it is seen by most of us, as a powerful tool of enlightenment, but rather a tool which replicates and enhances the ideals of the popular culture thereby giving it another level of depth to its mass deception. Or maybe they would also see it as a tool for enlightenment, but one that lacks, just as film in their view, the possibility to contribute to moral and ethical thinking.

Benjamin might have been happy to see that culture is not merely widely accessible but also produced by an ever growing number of people. More power has been put in the hands of the mass. But how would he explain that despite this change fascist ideals are growing in popularity and are gaining momentum on the political scene?

Maybe his answer would be, given his marxist perspective, that we are not producing culture for contemplation but that we are producing cultural products for consumption.