Task 2 - On Popular Music

Theodor W. Adorno had very strong opinions regarding popular music. He despised it. He believed that all mass culture is identical, that the masses crave predictability and homogeneity. Adorno stated that the less educated, working classes wanted music that was ‘easily digested’ or even ‘pre-digested’, as their lives were so hard that they would never want to have to listen fully. Listening to music would therefore take no effort.

Adorno believed that popular music produces passivity through ‘rhythmic’ and ‘emotional adjustment’. The recognisable beat of a song throws the masses into a communal dance creating ‘social cement’. This predictability creates a standardisation of the music industry itself.

Leona Lewis epitomises Adorno's sentiments on popular music. Famous through a reality television program, The Xfactor. Each series is identical to the last one. Each episode is standardised, the masses know exactly what will happen each time. Regardless of the 'winner' of the competition, the music, that the recording artist releases, will follow a predictable format. The masses know that the winner will release a single for the Christmas Number One. Usually a cover song that has already been sung in the programme. 

The fact that this song is a cover of a Snow Patrol song, only adds to Adorno's sentiment. The masses already know the song and the melody. It is simply regurgitated. The song is guaranteed to be popular due to this homogeneity. One already knows they will like the song. 

The music industries do everything in their power to makes the masses believe that a recording artist, such as Leona Lewis, writes her own music and has her own individuality. Of course, this is never the case. Standardisation must be hidden in order to protect the fantasy of freedom of choice. If one feels connected to a song, if it moves us, to discover it is yet another product of a booming capitalist machine, would surely crush us.

Task 1 - A Modern Day Panopticon

CCTV

The media is consistently telling us that closed circuit television (CCTV) is in place for our safety and wellbeing. It is there to record anti-social behaviour and therefore catch criminals. However, this “visibility is a trap”. In return for this apparent safety, we pay with our freedom.  CCTV is panoptic.

The general public have no way of knowing “the perversity of those who take pleasure in spying and punishing.” There are reports regularly of security personnel using CCTV to spy on people. Clearly this is a power that can be abused.

We know that we can be seen, but we cannot, ourselves, see who is watching us. We are the “object of information, never a subject in communication.” We are always conscious that we are being watched and so we act in a way that we feel in appropriate. One self-regulates. It is this “permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power”

We assume that someone in authority, someone of higher knowledge, is watching us. However, “consequently it does not matter who exercises the power. Any individual, taken almost at random, can operate the machine.” We will never question and only ever assume.

CCTV works to deter one from being unproductive. When used in the workplace “it is a perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation”. Workers will work and be useful to society, as they know they are being watched. Our workforce is made up of “docile bodies”. The power of those who watch us need never be exercised, as we become “the principle of [our] own subjection.”

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