Theme 2: Critical media studies - Reflections

This week we had our first seminar, and as we were told I read the chapter 4: “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” written by Adorno och Horkheimer. Or I had read it before this, I read it earlier for the Friday deadline. For that deadline I also read the other chapters we were told to read, but some of it I speed-read, because I prepared with reading and remembering the questions, so I was looking for the answers at most parts. Anyway in the seminar we first talked two-two about what we thought about this chapter. Me and the other person wanted to point out that the authors were very single-sided and that they talked much about escaping reality, and that this instead leeds onto more fascination rather than actually fleeing the reality, your reality. In the seminar I did my part I think, I could have contributed a bit more, so I will think about that for the next time. What I will take with me this week is that you should always be questioning where information comes from and analyze why the author might be thinking/feeling the way he or she does. For example during the seminar we talked about that the authors felt angry, and this is understandable because of the war. So that’s an interesting point of view to think about in the future, try and locate why the author is feeling the way he/she does. Furthermore I always learn when discussing philosophical questions, because it’s a subject I never read anything about before, and this is more learning about humans and a way to look at things, it’s hard to describe exactly what in text. One thing we talked about that was interesting is the following quote from the author's: “mass media is reality”. And this is in a way still true today. I think we are better at being critical but since we often, almost always I would say, are critical about the news itself that are being sent, and not what is NOT being sent. And this is the point, we don’t know what mass media doesn't tell us. This is one of the worlds biggest conspiracy arguments of course, but I think there’s some truth in it, even though we as human beings always want the truth and are curious and can go very far to reach the answers we seek, so the truth is probably always revealed. I say probably because I’m not 100% sure about that. And by truth I mean that mass media tells us everything and don’t hide anything, I.E. hiding is lying.