Adorno on Popular Music (Task 2)

Quickly read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music' (links below). In no more than a few paragraphs, summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on highlighting key points such as 'standardisation' etc.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Post a link to a YouTube pop video that, in your opinion, epitomises adorno's sentiments. Explain why, trying to emphasise the links to the wider 'culture industry' in general.

Adorno criticises modern pop music, believing that any generic form of pop music can be successful if it is repeatedly plugged enough by the media but also that the audience recognises key elements in it that have made it successful in the past, they consequently buy recognising this previous hit formula but not for its originality or talented effort.  

He regards pop music as being standardised, where songs will have a characteristic core structure but the uniformity is hidden by pseudo-individualisation such as interchangeable parts that will make them appear different and new. This gives the mass audience a feeling that they have an array of choice in music and can express their individualities but in fact this music is already chosen for them or has been pre-digested.

He also argues that one of the differences between serious music and pop music is that people have to make a conscious effort to appreciate a serious song where as pop music gives someone who feels that they already have hard working, boring lives a chance of escapism and of light relief however the mass reproduction of such music leads to boredom, so it is a circle that appears in-escapable .

I chose Jedward as I feel they epitomise Adorno's sentiments in terms of plugging and standardisation. 


Firstly the song is not original and it's main efforts in being so is by copying two previous standardised mass hits and its other is by associating themselves with a member from one of the hits to convince the audience that they may have some credibility.


The audience have no choice as to whether they want to hear the song or not as the dynamic duo were rammed down our throats not only every Saturday night for several months but on the front pages of standardised tabloids, radio and TV shows. So the individual can't feel like they are only rebelling against the song but against the wisdom of public utility as Adorno argues 'Resistance is regarded as the mark of bad citizenship, as inability to have fun, as highbrow insincerity, for what normal person can set himself against such normal music?'

Panopticism (Task 1)

Current examples of Panopticism:

The European Union is developing a 21st century panopticon, a beast surveillance system that critics describe as “Orwellian,” “sinister,” and “positively chilling,” that would collate data from numerous sources, including surveillance cameras and personal computers, in order to detect “abnormal behavior” across the entire continent. 
In a broader sense, this is part of the move towards creating a pan-European federal police force, where information and powers are shared as part of a centralised system. It is also a giant step towards the creation of a European CIA tasked not with keeping tabs on foreign enemies, but spying on its own population.

The surveillance system, known as Project Indect, promises to collect information by way of “continuous monitoring” of “web sites, discussion forums, usenet groups, file servers, p2p networks [and] individual computer systems”. It will also use CCTV feeds and other surveillance methods to develop models of “suspicious behavior” by analyzing the pitch of people’s voices (suggesting that private conversations will be recorded) as well as “the way their bodies move”. (http://www.wariscrime.com) 

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 100-200 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.

Social networks as Panopticism

There was a time when creating your own personal website took some form of specialist knowledge of creating html or java script. Technology has now enabled those without such abilities to create their own free social network through organised online communities such as Facebook and MySpace.

Although MySpace and Facebook have always been free the sites subsist on the revenue generated from small banner advertisements. Companies such as Apple and Coca Cola pour money into such communities to infiltrate the docile teenage bodies using such sites.

There is a certain Panoptic nature in which people use these sites in a confessional nature to talk about their daily lives and beliefs and as a function of this concern community members are encouraged to observe one another towards ensuring self discipline. They accept that their friends and family are acting as surveillance to their constant posts and mostly self regulate themselves accordingly. More importantly most recognise that there is a wider hierarchical power structure and that employers, law enforcers and the social communities own rule enforcement have the power to view their site. Facebook for example asks for you to declare that the images you upload are of a non explicit nature, and such requests Foucault would state 'is a major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. Facebook regulates its sites by even removing discourse of a racist, prejudice or copyright behaviour which reminds the 'Facebooker' that he is visible but unverifiable in that he never knows when he is being looked at. 'It is an important mechanism, for it automises and disindividualises power' (Foucault, in Thomas, 2000:p82)