Ohman & Adorno/Horkeimer Response

After completing the reading, "Selling Culture," by Ohman and thinking about our class discussion on the Adorno and Horkeimer reading, "The Culture Industry," I noticed some striking differences. The article by Adorno and Horkeimer was very straightforward and repetitive. The examples they used to back up arguments seemed non- relatable. The article by Ohman was well written and backed up with many historical examples to rectify their points. Ohman's arguments seemed much more open-minded and identifies many factors of a whole.

My first point is that Ohman article is more open-minded. He does not point the finger at one person, but understands the different facets of mass culture; he understands the transitions and natural progressions of life. In the article, "Selling Culture," he states, "I would venture to say that no major form of cultural production ever springs at once from the brain of a single person: television plagiarized from radio and the movies, radio took its content from newspapers, vaudeville, and the concert hall; moviemakers drew upon a variety of entertainments like the photograph, stereopticon, and magic lantern, which appealed through their re-representation of real life." Ohman explains that the industrial revolution was a huge movement dealing with mass production, which made commodities available. He states, "...national advertisers helped to create the new way of life, as well as seizing the opportunity it offered them...But I hope to have shown that it would be wrong to think of the 1890s advertising as "producer-driven" in a simple sense." Whereas Adorno and Horkeimer state, "The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly...as it's violence becomes more open, so it's power grows. " They explain through their article that the "people at the top" control the culture,” Capitalist production so confines them (consumers), body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them.''

Another point that differs from Ohman and Adorno /Horkeimer is their view on manipulation. In, “The Culture industry,” readers are constantly bombarded with ideas of manipulation and domination as shown when they state, "Furthermore it is claimed that standards were based in the first place on consumers’ needs, and for that reason were accepted with so little resistance. The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger." Whereas in Ohman's writing he clearly states that there is consent by consumers, not a cycle of manipulation, "...the hegemonic process, when it is working well, is a system of rule that depends on widespread, active consent more than force or manipulation." He also states, "I hope to have said enough to show that the theory of hegemony ...is distinctively different from both modernization theory and manipulation theory. From the former, it differs in describing the media and mass culture as channels of domination...”

In conclusion after critically examining both articles, I found two central differences between Ohman's article, "Selling Culture," and Adorno and Horkeimer's article, "The Culture Industry." The differences were focused on who influenced/controlled culture, which Ohman gave a broad range for many influences and Adorno and Horkeimer addressed only people of power and control, and if culture itself was being manipulated, which Ohman did not believe was occurring and Adorno and Horkeimer truly believed that manipulation was happening.