Abstract
In this chapter, I outline some theoretical considerations and basic concepts that guide my research. One of the major influences on studies of media has been the work of the early Frankfurt School. Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno held that mass media and popular culture under the conditions of late capitalism were repressive and only served to support an order of domination. Late capitalism had contained conflict and dissent including popular culture. Forms of mass and popular entertainment like music, radio, and later television were inherently conformist.
This view, while significant, was overstated. The Frankfurt theorists overestimated the closure of late capitalist culture, and underestimated possibilities for resistance. Although his early work agreed with the Frankfurt theorists, Jurgen Habermas’ conception of the public sphere and later work on legitimation crises provides an alternate approach that recognizes the conflicts in late capitalist societies and democratic political possibilities that the earlier theorists did not recognize. His formation provides a better starting point than those of his predecessors for understanding popular democratic initiatives that led to the creation of public access. I review some of key terms like the public sphere, civil society, and participatory democracy, and point out some modifications of a Habermas-influenced critical theory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For Horkheimer’s analysis of state capitalism, see both “The Authoritarian State,” and “The End of Reason”, in Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, New York: Continuum 1982: 95–117 and 26–48.
- 2.
Herbert Marcuse, “The Struggle Against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State,” in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory Boston: Beacon Press 1968: 1–30; 11.
- 3.
Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, New York: Seabury Press 1969, especially “The Culture Industry”.
- 4.
Horkheimer’s clearest formulation of this position is found in Eclipse of Reason, New York: Seabury 1974; also see Dialectic of Enlightenment.
- 5.
Max Horkheimer, “Art and Mass Culture,” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays New York: Continuum 1972: 278.
- 6.
Horkheimer “Art and Mass Culture” 279.
- 7.
Among many analyses of this phenomenon, see Herbert Schiller, Culture Inc: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression, New York: Oxford University Press 1990.
- 8.
Jurgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action vol 2 Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1985: 390.
- 9.
Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy, Boulder: Westview 1990. Also see Lynn Spigel and Michael Curtin eds., The Revolution Wasn’t Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict, Routledge 1997.
- 10.
See John Thompson, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of Media, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1995.
- 11.
John Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1991: 97, 110.
- 12.
Douglas Kellner, “T.W. Adorno and the Dialectics of Mass Culture,” p. 15 accessed at https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/adornomassculture.pdf.
- 13.
See, for example, Pierre Bourdieu, “The Market in Symbolic Goods,” in Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, New York: Columbia University Press 1984: 3; Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular,” in John Storey ed. Popular Culture: A Reader, Pearson/Prentice Hall 1998; Herbert Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture 2nd ed., New York: Basic Books 1999.
- 14.
Jurgen Habermas, “Moral Development and Ego Identity,” in Communication and the Evolution of Society, Boston: Beacon University Press, 1976: chapter 2 69–94.
- 15.
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. Also see The Constitution of Society: Outlines of the Theory of Structuration, Berkeley: University of California Press 1986.
- 16.
John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, London: Routledge 1989: especially chapter 2.
- 17.
See William Scheuerman, Between the Norm and the Exception: The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law, Cambridge: MIT Press 1997c.
- 18.
Luke Goode, Jurgen Habermas: Democracy and the Public Sphere, New York: Pluto Press 2005.
- 19.
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge: MIT Press 1991.
- 20.
David Zaret, “Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in Seventeenth-Century England,” in Craig Calhoun ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992: 212–235.
- 21.
Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000.
- 22.
Mary P. Ryan, “Gender and Public Access: Women’s Politics,” in Craig Calhoun ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992: 259–288; Mary P. Ryan, Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City During the Nineteenth Century, Berkeley: University of California Press 1997; Joan Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1988.
- 23.
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Craig Calhoun ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992: 109–142.
- 24.
Nancy Fraser op cit.
- 25.
Jurgen Habermas, “Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” in Craig Calhoun ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge: MIT Press 1993: 421–459.
- 26.
Jurgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press 1996.
- 27.
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge: MIT Press 1991.
- 28.
Jurgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, Cambridge: MIT Press 1998. In our work Critical Theory Democracy and the Challenge of Neo-Liberalism, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2019. Phillip Hansen and I develop some of these alternative elements in critical theories of democracy.
- 29.
On the history of the concept, see John Erenburg, Civil Society: A Critical History, New York: NYU Press 1999.
- 30.
Jean Cohen, Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory, Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts Press 1982.
- 31.
See, for example, John Keane, Democracy and Civil Society, London: Verso 1988; Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen, Civil Society and Political Theory, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1994; Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1995; Jeffrey Alexander, The Civil Sphere, New York: Oxford 2006.
- 32.
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Simon 2001.
- 33.
John Keane, Democracy and Civil Society, London: Verso 1988.
- 34.
John Keane, Global Civil Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003.
- 35.
Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen, Civil Society and Political Theory, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1994.
- 36.
Jeffrey Alexander, The Civil Sphere, New York: Oxford 2006: 3.
- 37.
Alexander, The Civil Sphere: 213ff.
- 38.
Axel Honneth, “Civil Society as Democratic Battleground: Comments on Jeffrey Alexander’s The Civil Sphere,” in Peter Kivisto and Giuseppe Sciortino eds., Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation: Thinking Through The Civil Sphere, New York: Oxford University Press 2015: 81–94.
- 39.
Arnold Kaufman, The Radical Liberal: New Man in American Politics, Atherton 1968.
- 40.
Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr 2004.
- 41.
Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age, Berkeley: University of California Press 1984: 181ff.
Bibliography
Adorno, Theodore, and Max Horkheimer. 1969. The Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Seabury Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford.
Arato, Andrew, and Jean Cohen. 1994. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Benjamin, Jessica. 1977. The End of Internalization: Adorno’s Social Psychology. Telos 32: 42–64.
Bordieu, Pierre. 1984. The Market in Symbolic Goods. In Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, 112–142. New York: Columbia University Press.
Calhoun, Craig, ed. 1992. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cohen, Jean. 1982. Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Eley, Geoff. 1992. Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun, 289–339. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ehrenburg, John. 1999. Civil Society: A Critical History. New York: NYU Press.
Fiske, John. 1989. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Routledge.
Fraser, Nancy. 1992. Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun, 109–142. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gans, Herbert. 1999. Popular Culture and High Culture. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.
Giddens, Anthony. 1986. The Constitution of Society: Outlines of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Goode, Luke. 2005. Jurgen Habermas: Democracy and the Public Sphere. New York: Pluto Press.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1976.: chapter 2. Moral Development and Ego Identity. In Communication and the Evolution of Society, 69–94. Boston: Beacon University Press.
———. 1985. Theory of Communicative Action Vol 2 Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 1991. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 1993. Further Reflections on the Public Sphere. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun, 421–459. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 1998. The Inclusion of the Other. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hall, Stuart. 1998. Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’. In Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey, 442–453. Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Horkheimer, Max. 1972. Art and Mass Culture. In Critical Theory: Selected Essays, 273–290. New York: Continuum.
———. 1974. The Eclipse of Reason. New York: Continuum.
———. 1982a. The Authoritarian State. In The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt, 95–117. New York: Continuum.
———. 1982b. The End of Reason. In The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt, 26–48. New York: Continuum.
Kaufman, Arnold. 1968. The Radical Liberal: New Man in American Politics. Atherton.
Keane, John. 1988. Democracy and Civil Society. London: Verso.
———. 2003. Global Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kellner, Douglas. T.W. Adorno and the Dialectics of Mass Culture, p. 15. Accessed at https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/adornomassculture.pdf.
Landes, Joan. 1988. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1968. The Struggle Against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State. In Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, 1–30. Boston: Beacon Press.
Negt, Oscar, and Alexander Kluge. 2016. Public Sphere and Experience: Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Spheres. Verso.
Putnam, Robert. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Simon.
Ryan, Mary P. 1992. Gender and Public Access: Women’s Politics. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun, 259–288. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 1997. Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City During the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schiller, Herbert. 1990. Culture Inc: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scheuerman, William. 1997. Between the Norm and the Exception: The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Seligman, Adam. 1995. The Idea of Civil Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Students for a Democratic Society. 2004. The Port Huron Statement. Chicago: Charles H Kerr.
Thompson, John. 1991. Ideology and Modern Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 1995. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of Media. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Zaret, David. 1992. Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in Seventeenth-Century England. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 2000. Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Caterino, B. (2020). The Frankfurt School and Its Aftermath. In: The Decline of Public Access and Neo-Liberal Media Regimes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39403-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39403-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-39402-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-39403-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)