Theme 2: Critical Media Studies - Reflection

Even though the part about enlightenment and myths were an interesting read and had a value to reflect on, most of my thought this week went to the “culture industry” and mass deception. I often find myself thinking about the culture industry and how standardized their products are, and how much they lack a cultural and intellectual value. Even if their products don’t fit you or even interest you in the beginning, we somehow get convinced to consume them. And I think that this is not only because they’re produced to suit us, but that thee industry put so much time and effort (and money) to try and stick their products down our throats with ads, time on the radio and so on. 

During this week’s seminar a student questioned why we should even bother to encourage making products that do not generate a lot of money, for example high art movies with their small audiences "that no one wants to see", praising mass produced products made with big budget. Even though this argument would be a valid one from an economical view, it’s hard for me to understand why someone would actually think that having mass produces movies, games and music as the only option being a good thing. The statement that we would be better off without low-budget/high art movies with their small audiences is in my opinion a bit sad. Since the majority of media that we go through everyday is media that doesn’t require any intellectual challenge or engagement, because everything is laid out for us without the need for interpretation, it would hurt the individual’s ability to interpret and understand material that isn’t obvious which is often the case in the real world. And our creativity would probably more or less plummet. And besides, I think that there are a demand for these movies that "no one wants to see", it's just that the people making them do not have millions of dollars for PR.

The most interesting part however, I think, was probably how we ourselves without knowing it are contributing to the mass culture whether we want to or not. That there are strategies used by big companies to map our habits and what is trending, to adapt their products to as many people as possible and how they with this strategy can keep their power of determining what culture is. The thought that companies can decide what culture is, is really unsettling for me since I think that this is the exact opposite of how it should actually be. Culture should be determined by those who have culture as their main interest, not money. I’m not saying that we should abolish mass culture, most of what I myself consume is part of the mass culture, but maybe there is room for more culture in mass culture.