Group - 2

MAJOR CONTRIBUTION OF ADORNO IN MEDIA:

Adorno suggested that false needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries.
These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system and which
replace peoples true needs- freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity,
genuine creative happiness. Popular media and music products are characterized by
standardization (they are basic formula and similar) and pseudo-individualization (incidental
differences make them seem distinctive, but they are not). Products of the culture industry
may be emotional or apparently moving but Adorno sees this as cathartic- we might seek
some comfort in a sad film or song, have a bit of a cry and then feel stored again. The
argument that is television leads people away from talking to each other or questioning the
oppression in their lives instead they get up and go to work (if they are employed), come
home and switch on TV, absorb TVs nonsense until bedtime and then the daily cycle starts
again.
CAPITALISM
Capitalism was based majorly on the policy of laissez-faire economy. Laissez faire
economy is one where there is no interference from the government and private
organizations and individuals are free to work out their own policies. Every mode of
production is privately owned and are mostly profit oriented. Competitive markets are an
important feature of capitalism. Capitalism can be traced back to the emergence of agrarian
mercantilism in the Renaissance. Markets are driven by the needs and wants of the
consumers. There is a high level of wage labour and in most cases labour was exploited
without providing good environment to work in. Every means of production is capital driven.
There is also the class divide between the capitalist class and working class. Though
providing consumers with what they want was important, the motive behind it was purely
profit oriented. There were two ways of making profit- by production and selling of goods
and by exploiting the labour class.
DAS KAPITAL- IDEOLOGY
Das Kapital was written by Karl Marx in 1867. It was one of Marxs greatest works and it
remains one of the most widely read and influential books. It was published at a time when
the working condition of the labour class was terrible and the division between both the
classes was increasing. It was born out of the industrial revolution and was a product of
thirty years of work Marx. It discussed in detail the workers, their working conditions, wages
etc. Commodity was the first chapter and discussed how it was a need and that these
commodities were the driving force behind capitalism. Marx discusses how everything
becomes materialistic and economic and does not have traces of emotions. Money is an
important feature of capitalism to an extent that human interactions revolve around
monetary issues to the media.
KARL MARX
Karl Marx was a philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and a popularly known
revolutionary socialist. A German ideologist famous for his book, Das Kapital and
Communist Manifesto.
He is the founder of Marxism- an ideology which holds that human societies progress
through class struggle- via a conflict between working class and production class(or
dominating class)
His overview was that capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its
self-destruction and produce a new system: socialism.

Bourgeoisie versus proletariat.

However, his ideologies failed and the inevitable revolution was replaced with
democracy and liberalist methods, rather than socialism due to extreme positive
outlook.
Also, the Marxist ideology was based of idealism and society, and it was considered
too idealist to exist. Theres always conflict in economy, for an idealist state, and
hence, through conflict extreme idealism cannot exist, and gets obsolete too quickly.

ANTONIO GRAMSCI

He was an Italian Marxist theoretician and politician, and the founding members for
Communist Party of Italy. He is the founder of Theory of Cultural Hegemony, which
describes how states use cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies.
Communist party in the Leninist sense was his solution to the drawbacks of Karl
Marxs ideology- where in a revolution was inevitable but the social class revolution
was has clearly failed in its purpose.
He was the key thinker contributing to Western Marxism. A compilation of his works is
Prison Notebooks- based on some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and
educational theory.
Cultural Hegemony- indicated that a state is formed based on not coercion alone, but
also depends on consent of the majority, since in the case of a majority not being
compatible with a coercive decision that the state authority wants to impose- would
lead to conflict, hence proving that a state runs on both the principles of coercion and
consent on parallel basis.

GRAMSCIS CONTRIBUTION TO MEDIA

He performed an extensive research on the impact of media on masses and role of

hegemony in state rule. In his theory of cultural hegemony, he briefs upon the role
and effect of media on coercion and consent.
The rule of working class is only executed through consent, and Gramsci, in his
explanations of Theory of Hegemony, and Cultural hegemony, answers this. However,
the media could similarly be used by those wishing to spread counter- hegemonic
ideas and therefore, intellectuals such as journalists would have a key role in realizing
change in contemporary society.
What he in fact, indicated is that media is by and large a huge contributor to help
generate these counter-hegemonic viewpoints and stands.

GLOBALIZATION
The term Globalization describes the internationalization of Capitalism in puritanical,
logical or ideological form in order to effect international alignment of states, governments
or unitary authorities around a single economic pole. In its puritanical form, Globalization
describes the internationalization of the principle of private ownership of the means of
production and ownership of the resultant profits derived from the capitalization of that
production. In logical form, Globalization describes the internationalization of the
exploitation of material resources for the purpose of maintaining the power of a unitary
authority in order to affect identifiable sovereignty. In its ideological form, Globalization
describes the internationalization of the distribution of resources throughout the global
populace in order to maintain the populace above absolute poverty.
Globalization, like Capitalism, also requires the monetization of global resources and
once acquired, further requires the development of globalised monetary policy to engineer
logical increases in the value of globalised monetization over time.

STRUCTURALISM AND FUNCTIONALISM

Structuralism was first introduced by Wilhelm Wundt. It aims to describe the structure of the
mind in terms of the most primitive elements of mental experience. It focused on the
breaking down of the brains mental processes into its basic components. Structuralism is
based on the idea that the aim of psychology is to investigate how the elements are related
to each other which is done by the study into sensations, images and feelings.
Functionalism was formulated as a reaction to Structuralism and aims to explain mental
process in a more accurate manner than Structuralism. It does this by focusing on the
purpose of consciousness and behavior. it was brought forward by William James and was
derived from the theory of natural selection created by Darwin which suggests that unless
characteristics of a species, including the processes in the brain, serves some sort of
purpose they would not be selected over time by nature and would not have survived.

Neo-Marxism
Neo Marxism does not refers to a single theory or approach but rather is a colloquial
reference to the combination of various 20th century schools of thought and approaches that
amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory. It is a lose term with no fixed definition as per
say and finds application in various fields. Neo-Marxism includes elements of
psychoanalysis (as in the case of critical theory), weberian sociology or anarchism. The
theories originally designated as Neo-Marxist are concerned in particular with culture and
ideology and with the role of capital states welfare institutions in retarding them advancing
socialism. Neo-Marxist ideology states that changes and amendments need to make it
relevant and useful to the current times. The Neo-Marxist school of thought developed after
the first world war when the Neo-Marxists saw the failure of working-class revolutions in
Western Europe. They interpreted these failures as an inherent lack of adherence to the true
Marxist theory, along with a lack of understanding of the prevailing social conditions. NeoMarxist theory focuses more on the social influences that perpetuate not just economic
oppression but also social oppression. They argued that Marx saw the economic sector as
preeminent, but he ignored the dialectical processes within it, such as politics, religion,
mass-media, etc. The Neo-Marxists argue that these processes cannot be reduced to
something determined purely by the economy.

Ashish Kumar
Tejas N.K
Garapati Nikita
SriLaxmi Madhu Sudhan