Sofia Costales

COM531M

Mr. Elvin Valerio

25 September 2017

Repetitiveness and Reproduction of Art:

The Flourishing Display of Media in Society

Art is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of

aesthetic objects (Merriam-Webster, 2017). Three well-known philosophers – Adorno, Horkheimer,

and Benjamin – each have their own textual analysis on how art, no matter how strongly influenced

by mass media, is being continuously appreciated, improved and applied in today’s society.

Primarily, art serves as fundamental expressions of people coming from different or the same cultures

who are able to identify an argument through various in-depth writings such as books and poetry,

enlighten minds through elaborate or abstract paintings, or interpret certain passages coming from a

film or a documentary. As we live in a consumer-based society with works of art being reproduced

for mass consumption, there is no doubt that our established interactions within the media – whether

in the economy, television or politics – shall evolve and transition from one ideology to the next.

In Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s work in Dialectic of Enlightenment, the culture

we have today is an image of “sameness” (qt. in Adorno & Horkheimer, 7). There is a presence of

uniformity in everything, from the shoes we wear to the cars we drive. The influence of media has

emerged strongly that people intend to stay “in the loop” and in trend with everyone else, usually

keeping up with what the market has to offer. In this notion, we have the tendency to get

disconnected with our normal day-to-day concerns, such as our present economic standing or how

much wealth we have to fulfill our desires. Perhaps it is in our “humanness” that we become so

enriched and “enlightened” with something raw, new and unfamiliar that we quickly get absorbed

into it without knowing we have already “fallen” as victims in the power of media.

With the rise of socialism – a political and economic theory that advocates that the means of

production, distribution, and exchange – art now focuses on the innovative business side of the

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equation and loses its main objective: “to create art for art’s sake”. In Connecting Arts & Business:

the main findings, it states that “organizations need to develop new audiences and develop their

knowledge of the members of their audiences and to strengthen their ties with the audience. The

digital shift requires many actors to rethink their position, not only communicating with the public in

general and in reaching their audiences but also in view their core business… The business sector has

to reinvent its social responsibility and sustainability or lose its credibility. Both sectors need to

innovate constantly their products and services to enrich their branding to keep a pole position in the

minds of their public.” (Heinsius, 6). To support this, film studios and radio stations today try to

familiarize themselves not just content producers but also money-making resources, oftentimes

diminishing the true purpose of art, which is to appreciate solely its beauty and emotional power.

Advertising used to be just a simple social service to inform clients of its available products and

goods, which has become the most efficient and effective strategy for traders and business owners up

to this day. Advertisers and businesses are running at full speed, bringing this generation too fast

forward. The mere fact that the digital-ness of our media dictates our fast-paced, daily lives will serve

as a warning that humans will too someday become passionless machines.

Capitalism is being demonized in terms of having a “controlled” economic system (qt. in

Adorno & Horkheimer, 10). It discusses the perspective in which our free market is “coming to an

end” and monopolies start to take over. However, this is not what we see in our society today – most

countries are capitalists. The system yields numerous great benefits for everyone, even for a price.

Capitalism rewards us with a healthy community where you can have just about anything you want,

may it be a product or a service. People are both the producers and consumers; we work to get paid,

and we use that source of payment to consume what is being offered to us. Consumers feel the

pressure to buy products or engage in promotional services frequently “seen” in the public eye, hence

the controlling aspect of media can be detected. Adorno and Horkheimer’s piece try to criticize that

in the media’s kind of “controlling” market system, consumers’ choices are being molded to invest in

material things that are unnecessary. Social progression can be determined through social actions in

the same way on how individuals spend their time, most specifically on leisure and recreational

activities. Nonetheless, Adorno firmly believes that free time should be spent to further increase our

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knowledge to provide solutions and become better members of society. A fascinating aspect coming

from The Culture Industry would be the constantly repeated “exposure of objects that people

desire” (qt. in Adorno & Horkheimer, 15). We see these in television commercials, magazines,

billboards and even as up-to-date as our smartphones or far as influential in the movies. Who would

have thought that Jollibee, our biggest local fast-food chain, has become increasingly popular these

days because of its new “gimmick” of uploading its cheesy and bubbly yet cinematic content on their

official Facebook page and YouTube channel?

Everything has become so digital that businesses use various forms of entertainment to attract

and persuade present-day consumers. Things have now commercialized in such a way that criticism

“disappears” in the culture industry (Adorno & Horkheimer, 17). In connection with Walter

Benjamin’s piece, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, it states that technical

reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all transmitted works of

art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public (sic) (3). The

evolution of art is directly proportional to the growth of in the media technology. Once it is out there

for mass consumption, people are already very eager to get their hands on it, without thinking about

the pros and cons. A great example would be the arrival of the latest Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone

which costs around PHP 40,000. This phone’s features are just about the same with older and cheaper

brands. For a substantial price to pay, one chooses to satisfy his wants to follow the trend. One is

stimulated and deceived by the product’s promotional campaign found everywhere in the market. If

he chooses to control himself and not be persuaded, or maybe if he has an older version with the

same brand and purpose, then it will no longer be necessary to make this purchase.

The media serves as both the feeder and the filter to the general audience. Every product in

the world is obliged to use discrete advertising techniques in order to sell. Popular soft drinks on

television commercials in-between our Filipino telenovelas keep giving us this “refreshing” approach

to its viewers at home, showing only the positive side of what the drink feels like when it is being

consumed, sometimes even in a slow-motion effect to prolong the image of what is perceived as

human happiness. No one wants to know all the specific chemical contents of a certain Coca-cola

bottled drink. Hence, these tiny but very important details are all ignored during its promotion. This

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is the same with energy drinks such as Cobra, Sting and Extra Joss, shown without warnings that too

much caffeine can be bad for your health. Our local beers, San Miguel Pale Pilsen and Red Horse,

also have share same instances. How many of us notice “Drink Responsibly” at the end of each 30-

seconder segment they produce? Might be a number of keen observers, myself included.

When the repetitiveness of each infomercial onscreen is imprinted onto our brains, we are

able to retain certain lyrics from slogans and campaigns or imitate a voice actor’s accents while

listening to them on the radio. Despite the media’s main objective to “overpower” its customers, one

slowly becomes absent-minded due to persistently repeating symbols found not only in the media but

also from those in power and authority. Let us ponder about our Philippine History for a moment:

books are written to criticize certain events in Philippine government, as well as books structured for

both elementary, high school and college students. We all know that in the creation process of books,

authors should have at least some basis or proof in their writing, even better if they incorporated it

with personal experiences and by being “products of their time”.

Our late Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, well-known for his declaration of

Martial Law from 1965 to 1986, is judged based on the writer’s own opinion and bias regarding the

truth. History books are publications – since books are the oldest form of print media, they can be

regarded as the most reliable sources, thus, books equal to the “truth” or factual material. A family

friend of ours from Sweden told me that when he moved to the Philippines in 1980, he was

influenced mainly by the group of journalists he was close to. There was a standard picture of the

“Dictator” in Europe. “After about half a year, I visited my friends again and tried to convince them

that Marcos was not at all as bad as they thought. He was a victim of the powerful people who

backed up his Presidency. In the years up to 1986, and the ouster of Marcos, I gradually got to

believe the massive opposition against him [through what was portrayed in the newspapers and in the

media] (Eckervall, 2017). What is written is still different from what is said. Being born after the

EDSA Revolution is quite a disadvantage due to having slanted and intersecting versions of histories

coming from the ever-compelling forms of media, taught by different institutions.

Aside from the expansion of culture industry, there is also a constant progression present in

art reproduction. “Replicas” are formed through different techniques, namely founding and stamping,

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woodcut, and lithography – all of which have been surpassed by print, photography, and soon

enough, film. Art became the “fabric of tradition” which served as a “remembrance”, and one way to

prove this was through photographs, which are established as some type of evidence (Benjamin, 6-8).

The transformation from books to theater plays to television adaptations have now gone as far as

being viral. As an arts advocate and former performing artist in a ballet company, I am able to

experience firsthand the re-staging of a popular children’s book, Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang, with

visions from writers, publishers, directors, and choreographers who started everything from scratch

once again. There is an obvious pattern here, that in order for an artistic idea to achieve its place in

the world, members from different sectors of society must work together.

There is a fine line between the adaptation of art from film to the theater, all parallel to media

and society. In the process of filmmaking, the lens used by the cinematographer becomes the eye of

the viewer. Most of the time there is little to no acting since it reflects the aura of normal, everyday

reality the film. After being recorded for playback, it is often sold to the public right after its premiere

night in the movies. Live theater performances, on the other hand, communicates an authentic, one-

night-only experience to its audience where actors exaggerate and identify to their character roles for

a much deeper, more emotional connection with the audience, though it happens only onstage. All

actors are generally paid to work and do their craft. Both cameraman and artist play major roles in a

production. In the transitions found in these current media practices, most creators and writers no

longer “connect” to their works compared to the early times, simply because they aspire to meet the

demands of the public which later on could monetize their works. Therefore, the creation of art today

involves interaction and is fulfilled through a business-perspective, even better with help of media.

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Sources:

“Definition of Art.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art. Web. 24 Sept. 2017.

Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.”

Dialectic of Enlightenment, Translated by Andy Blunden, 1944, pp. 1–22.,

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illumination, Edited by

Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn, 1969, pp. 1–26.,

web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf.

“Connecting Arts & Business: the main findings.” Edited by Joost Heinsius, Connecting Arts and

Business, Culture programme of the European Union, Sept. 2013,

www.connectingartsandbusiness.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ConnectingArtsAndBusiness-

WEB.pdf.

Eckervall, Ake. “An insight on deception in Philippine Media during Martial Law.” 22 Sept. 2017.

“Prinsipe Abante at ang Ibong Adarna Pinoy Classic Movie.” YouTube. 19 Mar. 2012. Web. 25 Sept. 2017

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