Media power vs People Power

In my essay I will be discussing the theories of Theodor Adorno and John Fiske and their views on ‘media power’. There are many other theorists who have study the effects of media on the audience but these two represent the complete opposite viewpoints of the debate, so they are the best two to use in this instance.

Adorno (September 11, 1903-August 6, 1969) came from Germany and was a member of the Frankfurt School of social theory along with Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas and others, these where all intellectuals. Adorno fled Germany in the 1930’s to America during the time of the rise of Nazi Germany. Adorno then went on to write a book with Max Horkheimer called ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ which contains the essay ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’. Both the writers had the view that the media had more power over the people. Adorno had called the ‘media industry’ the ‘culture industry’.

John Fiske is a media scholar who was a Professor of Communication Arts at the university of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born in 1939 in Britain and he graduated from Cambridge University. He had written 8 books in total such has ‘Power Plays, Power Works, Reading the Popular’ and ‘Understanding Popular Culture’. Fiske does not agree with the notion of ‘the mass audience’, which Adorno argued to believe instead Fiske believes that the audience are individuals and have unique tastes.

Adorno’s argument was that people (the audience) did not have their own culture but that they followed what the media had given them. A modern example to support Adorno’s argument is a band called ‘Axes of Awesome’ with their ‘4 chord’ song. In this song the band is able to put in nearly every hit music song and jumble them up but only use ‘4 chords’ to do this. The point in this song is that there is no difference between music types but that they all follow the same formula. Fiske’s argues that ‘the audience’ has a certain influence on the music that is produced by the media organization. He believes that ‘the audience’ has an identity and a choice of which type/genre of music they purchase and that not all music is the same. A modern example of this is Madonna and how her music changes frequently due to the trends at the time. Many people like Madonna for her ability to change styles and her type of music, this is a choice made by her fans, however some don't like every type of music she does and will choose not to support her by not buying her albums. This supports Fiske's view however Madonna changing her genre of music to suit the trends means that she is not being different and she is only singing what the media company want her to, this also supports Adorno's view on media culture and how the media is the 'Culture industry'.

Adorno was surprised when he arrived in America because of all the media productions that the people had just taken in, he was surprised of this because in Germany media was mainly fine arts and theater whilst in America it was cinema and broadway which Adorno believed to be all the same. A modern example to back this up is in the film 'Swordfish' where 'John Travolter' at the beginning basically says that hollywood just makes everything the same where there is always a happy ending for the good guy in the films. This supports Adornos idea of the media being a machine and just churning out the same thing time after time. This means that the audience does not have a say in what is produced and the story line of the film, but instead are lead to believe that the film is different and does not follow the same format of every other hollywood film. Fiske on the other hand believes that the people have the choice to watch or not watch the film's produce by hollywood and that there are different genres to the films just like in the music industry. Fiske's argument is that media is not all the same but does follow the same formula however the audience have the choice of what type of film they watch and how they like it to end.

In my opinion i believe that Adorno and Fiske have both got a very persuasive argument with many factors supporting their opinions and beliefs of the media, but i believe that it is impossible to determine who is write and wrong as the views of every person varies from people who believe in Adorno's view and people who believe in Fiske's view. I think that media does repeat a lot of the time but there are times where something new comes along something different wether it be in films or music from a film point of view you have the horror films such as 'Halloween' even though there have been many remakes which links in with Adorno's view, the good guy in it doesn't always win and it does not follow the conventional role of modern hollywood films which goes against Adorno view. This is mainly down to the director being more creative with his films. In the music industry you have many different genre types from heavy metal to R&B and they are they complete opposites so this is in more of Fiske's favour however many R&B songs have the same tune to it or talk about the same thing which proves Adorno to be right.

In conclusion Adorno and Fiske both have views on the media but believe in different things and I believe that Adorno is right in saying that the media does have power over the people as many people are subliminally persuaded by the media to buy things which they believe to be different such as music. Although I believe Fiske is right in saying that not all music and films are the same, and that people are individuals. I think that this argument will be continuous as people will always think and like different things and no-one will be the same as the next person.