The Frankfurt School & Critical

Cultural theory
 Notable figures
Some of the most prominent figures of the first
generation of Critical Theorists are Max Horkheimer
(1895-1973), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Herbert
Marcuse (1898-1979), Walter Benjamin (1892-1940),
Friedrich Pollock (1894-1970), Leo Lowenthal (1900-
1993), and Eric Fromm (1900-1980)

There were also many other contributors, especially

in the earliest stages of the Institute when it still had
orthodox Marxist affiliations
 Its earliest conception
The Frankfurt School was and continues to be
a philosophical and sociological movement,
which was originally founded in 1923

During its earliest years, the Frankfurt School

was associated with the Institut fr
Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research)
within Frankfurt University
 Its earliest conception
The initial idea behind the institute consisted around
the need for an independently founded school,
which aimed to provide studies on the labor
movement and the origins of fascism and anti-
Semitism

At the time of its inception, the problems of fascism

and anti-Semitism were being ignored in German
intellectual and academic life
 Felix Weil
The birth of the institute was largely thanks to Felix Weil, who had
been interested in the possibility of financing an institute devoted
to the study of society in the light of the Marxist tradition
 Felix Weil & the birth of the Institute
for Social Research
As Martin Jay notes (Creation of the Institut fr Sozialforschung,
1973): Weil was a young Marxist who had written his PhD on the
practical problems of implementing socialism (published by Karl
Korsch).

Weil wanted to bring different trends of Marxism together, and

organised a week-long symposium (the Erste Marxistische
Arbeitswoche) in 1922 attended by Georg Lukacs, Karl Korsch, Karl
August Wittfogel, Friedrich Pollock and others.

The event was so successful that Weil set about erecting a building
and funding salaries for a permanent institute. Weil negotiated with
the Ministry of Education that the Director of the Institute would be
a full professor from the state system, so that the Institute would
have the status of a University.
 Official recognition by German
Ministry of Education
Not long after its inception, the Institute for Social Research was
formally recognized by the Ministry of Education as a legitimate
organisation attached to Frankfurt University
 First director Carl Grnberg
The first official appointed director was Carl Grnberg, who was a
Marxist legal and political professor at the University of Vienna
 Carl Grnberg

Grnbergs time as director spanned between 1923-

1929) and is noted most for contributing to the
creation of an historical archive (also known as the
Grnberg Archiv)

This archive mainly oriented to the study of the labor

movement
 The most notable theorists connected with
the Frankfurt School were Theodor Adorno,
Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer, Jurgen
Hubermas.

all committed Marxists who were associated

with the Institute for Social Research
The Frankfurt School in
general was profoundly
pessimistic about the
mass media.
 In this approach cultural industry is completely
influenced by media. They criticized the medias
uniformity worship of technique, monotony,
escapism and production of false needs.

The cultural industry is the base of the quality of

life. The view of Frankfurt school was anti
capitalist, also anti American.
Critical cultural theory has extend
the studies on the significance of
media culture for the experience of
particular groups in society such as
youth, the working class ethnic
minorities and other marginal
categories.
The Frankfort School scholars claimed
that:
Mass culture is a debased form in capitalist society:
According to Adorno a monopoly control over the
production and distribution of culture. He saw the
formula of media content and the creation of stars as
evidence of this.

Mass culture is designed to produce fauls

consciousness

Mass Culture embodies a hegemonic ideology.

 Adorno felt that the new cultural industry
produced and maintained the authority of elite.
Cultural industry deceives us rather than
enlightening us.
According to Adorno, Commodification is central
process in cultural industry.
Mass art was merely a commodity to be sold, it
designed to manipulate consumers through pre
digested formulas and calculated effects rather
than any concern for artistic form or truth
content.
 Adorno's analyses of popular music (1978 [1932], 1941, 1982, and 1989),
Lowenthal's studies of popular literature and magazines (1984), Herzog's
studies of radio soap operas (1941), and the perspectives and critiques of
mass culture developed in Horkheimer and Adorno's famous study of the
culture industries (1972 and Adorno 1991) provide many examples of the
value of the Frankfurt school approach.
Their theories of the culture industries and critiques of mass culture, they
were the first to systematically analyze and criticize mass-mediated
culture and communications within critical social theory.
They were the first social theorists to see the importance of what they
called the 'culture industries' in the reproduction of contemporary
societies, in which so-called mass culture and communications stand in
the center of leisure activity, are important agents of socialization,
mediators of political reality, and should thus be seen as major institutions
of contemporary societies with a variety of economic, political, cultural
and social effects. [3]
 Conclussion
In the conclusion in can be argued that, Frankfurt
school theorists especially Horkheimer and
Adorno believe that as the peoples id is
colonised by elements of capitalism such as
culture industry, it becomes difficult to create a
plan for a rational society. They argued that
capitalism dominates peoples thoughts and
creates an illusion of happiness and satisfaction
while capitalism itself benefits from it to a great
extent. As a result it becomes difficult for men to
think in a way that would motivate him or her to
build a true rational society.