The Culture Industry

Adorno & Horkheimer adopted the term 'culture industry' to argue that the process in which specific cultural items are produced is similar to how vast amounts of consumer goods are created in the industry. They said that the culture was similar to an assembly line in the synthetic way it turns out products in the form of new musicians and bands.

Adorno & Horkheimer linked the idea of a culture industry to a model of mass culture in which cultural production has become a routine, standardized operation. The consumption of these cultural commodities is also standardized.

Adorno and Horkheimers views of the culture industry have been seen by many as a very pessimistic view although it may have some justification. Some see them as cultural elitists that perceive the "mass" taste to be bad on principal and that any artistic creativity in popular music is corrupted by the industry.

Adorno & Horkheimer argued that all products produced by the culture industry exhibit standardized features.

Pseudo-individuality is where a product of the culture industry seems to be unique and interesting, but is the same as every other commodity and fits into boxes based on their characteristics.

The culture industry allows people to become "masses" and easily manipulated by capitalist corporations and authoritarian governments.