Berry - Revisiting the Frankfurt School: Essays on Culture, Media and Theory

REVISITING THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

For Professor John Theobald, wherever you may be

Essays on Culture, Media and Theory

Edited by

DAVID BERRY

Southampton Solent University, UK

ASHGATE

David Berry 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

David Berry has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Revisiting the Frankfurt School : essays on culture, media and theory.

1. Frankfurt school of sociology. 2. Critical theoryGermany. 3. CulturePhilosophy. 4. Mass mediaPhilosophy. 5. IntellectualsGermany.

I. Berry, David, 1960

301.0943-dc23

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Revisiting the Frankfurt School : essays on culture, media and theory /
[edited] by David Berry.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-1180-2 (hbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4094-1181-9 (ebook)

1. Frankfurt school of sociology. 2. CulturePhilosophy. 3. Critical theory. 4. Sociology.

I. Berry, David, 1960

HM467.R485 2011

301.0943dc23

2011031851

ISBN 9781409411802 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409411819 (ebk)
ISBN 9781409495178 (ebk-ePUB)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.

David Berry

Sanda Miller

Alan OConnor

Philip Bounds

David Berry

Robert E. Babe

Mike Wayne

Julian Petley

Hanno Hardt

Caroline Kamau

Robert E. Babe is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario London, Canada. He is former holder of the Jean Monty/BCE Chair in Media Studies. He is author or co-author of nine books, including Cultural Studies and Political Economy: Toward a New Integration. University of Toronto Press has recently published Media, Structures, and Power: The Robert E. Babe Collection, edited by Edward Comor. Robert Babe loves riding his motorcycle.

David Berry gained his PhD in Media Communication at the University of Glamorgan and currently works at Southampton Solent University, England. His most recent publication is Journalism, Ethics and Society published by Ashgate Publications and currently being translated into Arabic by the King Saud Center, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. He is currently healthy and of a sane mind.

Philip Bounds holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Wales. His books include British Communism and Literary Theory (2011), Orwell and Marxism (2009), Cultural Studies (1999) and Recharting Media Studies (edited with Mala Jagmohan, 2008).

Hanno Hardt is John F. Murray Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication and Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, USA and currently serves as a professor of Communication and Media Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and several books, most recently, The American Journalism Reader, 2011, edited with Bonnie Brennen.

Caroline Kamau obtained her PhD in Social Psychology and BSc (hons) in Psychology with Clinical Psychology from the University of Kent in England. She is currently a senior lecturer in Psychology at Southampton Solent University. She conducts experimental and applied psychology research, with recent publications including an article on intergroup guilt and shame, an article on task group performance, and a chapter on cross-cultural impression management. She has interests in the history of psychology, and she teaches a unit on historical and conceptual issues in Psychology.

Sanda Miller started her academic career with a BA (hons) in History and Art and Philosophy completed at Birkbeck College, London University after which she went to the Courtauld Institute of Art where she completed an MA (Venetian Quattrocento), followed by a PhD (Constantin Brancusi). Her specialist subject is French avant-garde movements although her interests, research and writing have become increasingly interdisciplinary ranging from Philosophy to Visual Culture, the History of Dress and Critical Theory. Her latest book: Constantin Brancusi was published in 2010 by Reaktion Books and at present she is working on a book on the history of dress. She is a regular contributor to Apollo magazine but writes for many other British, European and American specialized publications. She is also invited to deliver papers at international conferences, most recently in Canberra, Australia (December 2010) and Istanbul, Turkey (May 2011).

Alan OConnor is Director of the PhD Programme in Cultural Studies at Trent University, in Canada. He has written and edited books on Raymond Williams and on community radio in Latin America. His most recent book is Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy (Lexington Books 2008).

Julian Petley is Professor of Screen Media and Journalism in the School of Arts at Brunel University, Chair of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and a member of the board of Index on Censorship. His most recent books are Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media (Oneworld 2011, co-edited with Robin Richardson) and Film and Video Censorship in Modern Britain (Edinburgh University Press 2011). He is currently writing a book on David Cronenbergs Crash for Palgrave, and a book on obscenity for Reaktion.

Mike Wayne is a Professor in Screen Media at Brunel University and the author of Marxism and Media Studies: Key Concepts and Contemporary Trends (2003). He has recently written Marxs Das Kapital For Beginners (2011) and is currently researching on the relations between Kant and Marxist cultural theory.

David Berry

In the introduction to David Helds accomplished 1980 book, Introduction to Critical Theory, Horkheimer to Habermas he begins thus: The writings of what may loosely refer to as a school of Western Marxism critical theory caught the imagination of students and intellectuals in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the initial parts of the introduction Held continues to refer to the school and then the Frankfurt School in inverted commas before further stating:

The membership is often referred to as the Frankfurt School. But the label is a misleading one; for the work of the Institutes members did not always form a series of tightly woven, complementary projects. To the extent that one can legitimately talk of a school, it is only with reference to Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Lowenthal and Pollock and it is for these five men that I have reserved the term Frankfurt School. When referring to the Institute of Social Research, however, I include all those affiliated to the Institute.