From Media Critique to Method: Four Readings of Adorno’s Culture Industry
From Media Critique to Method: Four Readings of Adorno’s Culture Industry

Summary/Abstract: The answer to the question, what Theodor Adorno’s theory of culture industry is about, is not as obvious as it seems to be. Even a peek on the growing research on Adorno is usually enough to realize that the main idea of the theory is not so clear. Philosophers have their own way to read Adorno, whereas in film studies or in media studies scholars may emphasize some other aspect of his theories. To clarify the situation, this article analyzes the reception of Adorno by the means of comparative theoretical study and offers a classification of different readings on Adorno’s theory. It also proposes an alternative to them and argues that there is still at least one overlooked aspect in Adorno’s theory: the idea of dialectics. As a reference point for the classification the article uses a typology that Peter Uwe Hohendahl created to describe the reception of Adorno’s thought as a whole. In line with Hohendahl’s model, the article presents four different ways to interpret the theory of culture industry. The first is called the selective reading of media critique, the second postmodern critique, and the third a critico-philosophical rereading. The last one is an alternative the article suggests to the preceding interpretations. It is called the search for method.

• Details
• Contents