Ideology and Mass Communications — the Problem of Legitimacy

Abstract

As we have argued in previous chapters, underpinning the Marxist theories of the Frankfurt School (Marcuse, Horkheimer and Adorno) is a model of modern capitalist society as a mass society. Although there are differences of emphasis between these theorists, they all agree that, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, the civil institutions grow progressively weaker as the role of the state becomes more and more dominant in economic management and social and cultural organisation. In these circumstances the question of social integration devolves on the state and the notion of legitimacy itself becomes increasingly problematical. Marx’s revolutionary class is now integrated fiom above by the ‘culture industry’ — the mass media of television, radio, newspapers and magazines. The dominant ideology is thus imposed on a passive, pliant mass: ‘the result of a permanent and pervasive effort, conducted through a multitude of agencies, and deliberately intended … to dissuade members of the subordinate classes, if not from holding, at least from voicing unorthodox views’. This argument of Ralph Miliband crudely echoes the pessimistic theories of the Frankfurt School and the two chapters of his book, The State in Capitalist Society, devoted to the problem of legitimacy constitute a sustained attempt to show that social integration is the direct result of ‘a process of massive indoctrination’.¹