Theme 2 - Critical media studies

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment

a. What is "Enlightenment"?

I think enlightenment was a way to rely more on knowledge than on myths and illusions etc. In the text, Adorno and Horkheimer writes that enlightenment wanted to dispel myths and to overthrow fantasy with knowledge. Later in the chapter they also writes that things which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion.

b. What is "dialectic"?

I think it means that you have to make definitions and structures. Instead of just making assumptions based on myths or fantasies, that might not be true. We need to believe in knowledge and to make definitions and structures of what we know.

c. What is "nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism means that the use of a general word not implies the existence of a general thing named by it. It can also refer to a position that denies the existence of universal entities or objects, but accept that particular objects or entities. I think it is important because it sometimes argues against knowledge and as an advantage for myths. A nominalist could not believe in a whole myth but he could believe in some of the things in the myth. Thereby he could question the knowledge and argue that parts of the myth might be true. This might also refer to the fact that enlightment became a new myth.

d. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

In their argument, myth is all forms of knowledge that existed before enlightenment. I think it is a way of create a definition of all the kinds of knowledge that existed before enlightenment. Instead of having a lot of different words describing different kind of knowledge they use “myth” as a way of representing all kinds of knowledge. Myth in this case does not necessarily contain magic or mythical creatures, it can be all kind of knowledge.

2. "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"

a. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

The substructure is the base of the society, it is the means of the production. For example the tools, machines, factories etc. The superstructure is built upon the base, it is everything that not directly has to do with the production. For example art, family, culture, law, media etc.

I think the point of analyzing this from a Marxist perspective is that substructure and the superstructure needs to go hand in hand. We need both for cultural production and we need them to be close to each other. We need to think about the social relations, which is a main topic in Marxism, because the social relations base the economic system and the economic system forms the superstructure.

b. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

I think culture have revolutionary potentials, the culture change all the time. One thing that Benjamin argues about is art. A revolution in art culture is photography. When photography entered the art culture art became less original. A painting, or other form of “old” art, came in just one copy, the original. With photography you could produce more copies of one picture, from the photo negative a picture could become five, or even more, copies. That is one kind of culture revolution and I think that we maybe can compare this to enlightment that Adorno and Horkheimer talks about.

c. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

I think natural perception is about our experiences. People experience things in different ways and all these experiences is a natural perception. A historical perception is instead that we gets influenced by historical events. For example, Benjamin talks about the fifth century where it was a great shift of population which gave birth to the late Roman art industry.

d. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Benjamin means that “aura” is the originality and authenticity of a work of art. It cannot be reproduced which means that a painting has an aura but a photograph does not. Benjamin defines the aura of a natural object as distance, however close it may be.