The term ‘Culture Industry’ is an idea that started being discussed in the early 1940’s by the infamous theorists Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who were also influential members in the Frankfurt school. ‘Culture Industry’ is used to describe the mass production of cultural products such as TV shows, Music, Movies and even Sport. Theodor W. Adorno’s and Max Horkheimer’s exact definition of his theory ‘Culture Industry’ is this “Popular culture being akin to factories that produce standardized cultural goods (e.g., films, radio, magazines) used to manipulate mass society in various ways.”
As I slightly touched on before the Frankfurt school was the first place that started to really study about the ‘Culture Industry’ in depth and their argument was that “The culture industry perpetuates the capitalist system by distracting individuals from critical thinking and reinforcing dominant ideologies.” This means that the people of Frankfurt school believed that the mass media was bombarding their audiences with different forms of engaging media to stop them from thinking critically. This also meant that the mass media organizations who were constantly publishing content were making huge amount of profit, which of course is a huge benefit for them and for this reason many people believe that what the mass media does even in modern day society is a form of exploitation.
Commodification is a form and product of ‘Culture Industry’ and I am now going to dive into the commodification of sport. Commodification is the process through which something that previously was not regarded as an object to be bought or sold becomes an object that can be bought, sold and traded in the world market. Sport is a great example of this definition, specifically football. The sport ‘Football’ is something that was created a long time before any research or data could be recorded so there is no known knowledge about when it was first played or who created the game, this is a key point for the argument about the commodification of football. This is because football was not a brand or something that could be used to generate income, it was only played out of love and enjoyment for the sport.
In fact, football grew so strong that it became a world sport. In 1914 the day known as the Christmas truce happened and on this day the end and agreement of World War 1 was announced, thousands of soldiers who were fighting each other just a couple of minutes before the agreement was finalized gathered on the no man’s land and played a game of football. This shows the power and influence football had on the world as a sport, football is still as loved and appreciated around the world today.
However, football has become a brand for some businesses to make huge amounts of money from and the biggest one is the Premier League. The Premier League is the highest form of domestic English Football with most of the best players in the world playing in it and most people around the world watching it, to watch Premier League games you must now have a subscription to various broadcasting services like BT Sport, Sky Sports and Amazon Prime. The idea of ‘Culture Industries’ links heavily to the Premier League because mass audiences are paying to engage with media that is being published by these large media organizations for their own self profit.
Refrences:
Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer Image: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/frankfurt-school-dialectic-of-enlightenment
Premier League Title Image: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/21564/11866401/get-premier-league-goal-alerts-and-more-with-sky-sports-football-score-centre
World War 1 Football Image: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ww1-soccer-photos
Premier League Logo Image: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/league/_/name/eng.1
‘Culture Industries’ Quote 1: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W.Adorno,(2006).‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’ in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks.
‘Culture Industries’ Quote 2: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W.Adorno,(2006).‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’ in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks
Featured Image: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.deviantart.com%2Fthe-enigmatic-horse%2Fart%2FCulture-Industry-257496072&psig=AOvVaw1BP1Z7RQ1YJy9Uk2XA-a9I&ust=1698191638032000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjhxqFwoTCJiixIGvjYIDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
I like how you’ve gone into the history of football and how it was used to bring together countries that were fighting against each other and then compared it to modern day football. As a football fan, this explanation of the culture industry within football is very eye opening and so I leave you with a similar question. What team do you support?
Football is indeed a very good sport. It is the well-deserved number one sport. It is of great significance to people all over the world. Which star is your favorite?
I love the link between mass production in media and football, and I couldn’t agree more with your standpoint. The mass production of matches, advertising and sponsorships cause the essence of football to slowly die out and unfortunately it’s all done for a bigger pay check. Great read.