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ulture industry:

Alexa Loses Her Voice – Amazon Super Bowl LII Commercial

This Amazon advertisement plays upon Marxist theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer “culture industry” theory. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer define the “culture industry” within their work, "Dialectic of Enlightenment” as capitalism operating as the primary source of influence for the public’s cultural products. The overall goal of this advertisement is to sell the Amazon “Alexa” to the public. The ways in which the advertisers accomplish this is by inserting popular and culturally relevant individuals such as celebrities in order to generate hype. This is a prime example that directly relates to Adorno and Max Horkheimer culture industry theory. A major corporation “Amazon” cultivating a positive cultural discourse surrounding their product in order to generate sales. This desired cultural experience of possessing an Amazon “Alexa” has been socially constructed by capitalist corporations. Falsely enlightening you until feeling independent in your desire to acquire the product when in fact you are simply conforming to the needs of the corporation. Adorno touches upon this idea claiming “Amusement and all the other elements of the culture industry exist­ ed long before the industry itself Now they have been taken over from above and brought fully up to date. The culture industry can boast of hav­ ing energetically accomplished and elevated to a principle the often inept transposition of art to the consumption sphere, of having stripped amuse­ ment of its obtrusive naiveties and improved the quality of its commodi­ ties“. Here the theorists express how authentic cultures have been lost at the hands of captistic corperations turning experiences into industry.  

Horkheimer, Max, Adorno, Theodor W. and Noeri, Gunzelin Schmid. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804788090 

Dominant-hegemonic position:

This Condom advertisement by Zazoo can be easily linked to the audience’s Dominant-hegemonic position surrounding the messaging of this video. Dominant hegemonic position is defined as an audience’s complete understanding of the sender's message. In addition to the acceptance of the intended meaning behind the message. This definition is provided by Stuart Hall, a renowned revolutionary theorist within the realm of communication. This relates particularly to this advertisement as the Zazoo company is able to convey the annoyance of having kids to the audience in such a way that supports their product. Primarily because the child is yelling in a supermarket creating a disturbance for the parents and neighboring observers. Within this example the audience has adopted the dominant-hegemonic position, the outlook that Zazoo wants the audience to hold in order to sell their product. Hall associates dominant-hegemonic positions with a class-like system in which powerful actors and authorities are able to assert their beliefs, spreading their views throughout the audience. Hall Writes within chapter 36 of his work The Cultural Studies Reader, “ Majority audiences probably understand quite adequately what has been dominantly defined and professionally signified. The dominant definitions, however, are hegemonic precisely because they represent definitions of situations and events which are ‘in dominance’ (global). Dominant definitions connect events, implicitly or explicitly, to grand totalisations, to the great syntagmatic views-of-the-world: they take ‘large views’ of issues: they relate events to the ‘national interest’ or to the level of geopolitics even if they make these connections in truncated, inverted or mystified ways ”. This extract by Hall expresses how dominant discourse creates the meaning we hold as cultures and societies. 

Hall, Stuart. "Encoding/decoding." Media studies: A reader 3 (2000):

Ideological State Apparatus:

This advertisement for a hospital charity discusses the importance of being with family during holiday season and while they are in recovery. I view this advertisement containing strong links in relation to the Ideological State Apparatus. This term was utilized by Louis Althusser, a french philosopher. Altusser claims that there exist two forms of infrastructure within a society: the legal institutional base and the Ideological side. The legal base relates to the repressive state apparatus, representing institutions such as the police, the military and government. The repressive state apparatus dictates that these agencies utilize violence and punishment to ensure the control and power of the state. On the other hand the Ideological State Apparatus operate through the radio, television, family, and culture. The Ideological State Apparatus like the repressive state apparatus has the same objective to ensure control and power yet without forms of violence and on a non-unified institutional level. Throughout the duration of this commercial the viewer experiences the day in the life of a working class factory worker who wants to provide his family with gifts. I would argue that the reason he is afraid that he won’t be able to spend time with his family and provide them with presents is due to the Ideological State Apparatus. The ideological systems we have within our societies such as education and western work mentality have all contributed to this individual's feelings of needing to work instead of spending time with friends. Altusser claims, “No class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses”. This expresses the ways in which the ruling class dominate discourse on an ideological level in order to secure power and influence. 

 Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation)(1970)." Cultural theory: an Anthology (2010):

Mechanical Reproduction:

This Tide Super Bowl commercial relates heavily to Walter Benjamin’s perspective on the mechanical reproduction of art. Walter Benjamin is a theorist who expresses his disdain for the mechanical reproduction of art. Benjamin claims that reproduction devalues art at a certain capacity as it is stripped of its uniqueness. This works in correlation to the advertisement because the advertisement contains a compilation of typical Super Bowl commercials (car commercial, beer commercial…). These random commercials can be compared to mechanically reproduced art in the way that the continuous reproduction of the advertisements lessens the value of the commercials it’s showing. While on the other hand increasing the value of the product they are attempting to sell (Tide) because of how their marketing is unique and different from the typical submissions. Tide purposefully did this in order to jump out of the normative, duplicate landscape. Walter Benjamin claims “ in principle, the work of art has always been reproducible. Objects made by humans could always be copied by humans. Replicas were made by pupils in practicing for their craft, by masters in disseminating their works, and, finally, by third parties in pursuit of profit. But the technological reproduction of artworks is something new ”. Here Benjamin echoes a significant point, that the reproduction of art has always been a way in which people have made money. Yet it’s a little humorous that Tide has made money by not playing into the reproductive cycle but making fun of it.

 Benjamin, Walter. "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction." In A museum studies approach to heritage. Routledge, 2018.

Negotiated Code

https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o 

This advertisement plays upon the little girls' negotiated code of different worldly perspectives in order to come to her own conclusion. Negotiated code is best explained by Stuart Hall, a renowned revolutionary theorist within the realm of communication. Hall says negotiated code is when the receiver of a code (communication) is able to adopt or oppose the information, giving the audience the ability to modify the code based upon their own beliefs.This advertisement starts off with a young girl not curious about why an orangutan is in her room. She further questions the creature and receives information pertaining to its horrific living situation caused at the hands of deforestation. Through this encoding of information the little girl has a realization that human activities within the forest are terrible and need to be challenged. This decision and belief has been adopted in contrast to the harmful hegemonic stance our society has in relation to normalizing such activities, expressing independence from the status quo. Hall claims “ Decoding within the negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations, while, at a more restricted, situational level, it makes its own ground rules – it operates with exceptions to the rule”. Seemingly possessing a negotiated code as a baseline perspective allows for adaptation and independent  thinking.