Culture Industry

The first task we was asked to carry out was to do some brief research into the term 'Culture Industry' which was a term produced by Adorno and Horkheimer many years ago. After we had researched we was then asked to construct a definition from what he had found out. Here is my definition of the culture industry :

The culture industry is a term produced by Adorno and Horkheimer. In their theory they explained that popular culture is similar to a machine producing ‘standardized’ cultural goods for example films, radio programmes, magazines, TV programmes etc. The ‘machine’ turns these artists into something, which they are not, and in some cases takes their originality away from them so that they can produce something, which appeals to the masses and not just the niche audiences. These now 'new' artists are under control by the 'machine' and all of their uniqueness has been taken away so that they follow the crowd and produce something all very similar to the other artists which are out there today. Hegemonic capitalist practices which are the large music companies control what the artist produces so that they know that the music which they produce is going to be successful and make money. In reality pop stars now just become a commodity for the large companies to exploit and make money out of.