Product Description

Unpacks Adorno's critique of popular culture in an engagingly, looking at the development of theories of authority, commodification and negative dialectics. Goes on to consider Adorno's writing on specific aspects of popular culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #681505 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

From the Back Cover
In the decades since his death, Adornos thinking has lost none of its capacity to unsettle the settled, and has proved hugely influential in social and cultural thought. To most people, the entertainment provided by television, radio, film, newspapers, astrology charts and CD players seem harmless enough. For Adorno, however, the culture industry that produces them is ultimately toxic in its effect on the social process. He argues that modern mass entertainment is manufactured under conditions that reflect the interests of producers and the market, both of which demand the domination and manipulation of mass consciousness.

Here Robert W. Witkin unpacks Adornos notoriously difficult critique of popular culture in an engaging and accessible style. Looking first at its grounding in a wider theory of the totalitarian tendencies of late capitalist society, he then goes on to examine, in some detail, Adornos writing on specific aspects of popular culture such as astrology radio, film, television, popu