section_path: Criticism/The culture industry
section_name: The culture industry
paragraph_text: The culture industry
  
  The most influential critiques of popular culture came from Marxist theorists of the Frankfurt School during the twentieth century. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer analyzed the dangers of the culture industry in their influential work the Dialectic of Enlightenment by drawing upon the works of Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and others. Capitalist popular culture, as Adorno argued, was not an authentic culture of the people but a system of homogenous and standardized products manufactured in the service of capitalist domination by the elite. The consumer demand for Hollywood films, pop tunes, and consumable books is influenced by capitalist industries like Hollywood and the elite who decide which commodities are to be promoted in the media, including television and print journalism. Adorno wrote, "The industry bows to the vote it has itself rigged". It is the elite who commodify products in accordance with their narrow ideological values and criteria, and Adorno argues that the audience becomes accustomed to these formulaic conventions, making intellectual contemplation impossible. Adorno's work has had a considerable influence on culture studies, philosophy, and the New Left.
  
  Writing in the New Yorker in 2014, music critic Alex Ross, argued that Adorno's work has a renewed importance in the digital age: "The pop hegemony is all but complete, its superstars dominating the media and wielding the economic might of tycoons...Culture appears more monolithic than ever, with a few gigantic corporations—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon—presiding over unprecedented monopolies". There is much scholarship on how Western entertainment industries strengthen transnational capitalism and reinforce Western cultural dominance. Hence, rather than being a local culture, commercial entertainment is artificially reinforced by transnational media corporations. Globalized pop culture can contribute to the homogenization of cultural identities, erasing or diluting diverse local traditions and practices in favor of standardized, marketable forms of entertainment and consumption.
  
  Jack Zipes, a professor of German and literature, critiqued the mass commercialization and corporate hegemony behind the Harry Potter franchise. He argued that the commodities of the culture industry are "popular" because they are homogenous and obey standard conventions; the media then influences the tastes of children. In his analysis of Harry Potter's global brand, Zipes wrote, "It must conform to the standards of exception set by the mass media and promoted by the culture industry in general. To be a phenomenon means that a person or commodity must conform to the hegemonic groups that determine what makes up a phenomenon."