Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them.

Evidence

All that is left of the symphony is a chamber symphony … The less listeners know about the undistorted original (especially those listeners whom radio pompously invites to take part in musical culture), and the more dependent they are on the sound from the radio, the more powerlessly they fall under its neutralizing effect, without being aware of it … The only people able to use radio sensibly are specialists, for whom the symphony, purified from all the solemnities and fuss of the concert hall, is enlarged, like looking at text through a magnifying glass. Armed with the score and a metronome, they would be able to follow the performance and expose its errors irresistibly. But this is not, of course, the purpose of the thing. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1016

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The paradox — radio simultaneously destroys and enlarges the symphony, with only score-armed specialists able to recover its true form — is a dense, layered media-theoretical statement that rewards extended reflection.
• XREF: The claim that media neutralizing effects fall hardest on naive listeners, unbeknownst to them, prefigures later work on media literacy, the digital divide, and algorithmic manipulation. — connects to: Adorno held that broadcast symphonies neutralize music except for trained specialists; The Gehlen-Adorno radio debate recapitulated the Grand Inquisitor parable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2481; Adorno argued broadcasting offered only an image of live music, not the real thing — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 265 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The Gehlen-Adorno radio debate recapitulated the Grand Inquisitor parable #responds-to (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2481