Denying sole-cause status is a straw man that lets media off the hook

Evidence

For the sake of gaining an audience and possessing credibility, mass media must reproduce social reality; the consequence of this is that they ‘may deflate or undermine the ideological illusions of their own products and however unwittingly engage in social critique and ideological subversion’. Analogously, the requirements of pleasing a mass audience, of providing something for everyone, may have the unintended consequence of revealing social alternatives and hence splintering ‘the ideological hegemony which was once the fragile accomplishment of the culture industry’. The culture industry is no longer the purveyor of a monolithic ideology but, however unwittingly or unintentionally, includes moments of conflict, rebellion, opposition and the drive for emancipation and utopia. While pop music, for example, may exhibit the features of commodification, reification and standardization, it can equally ‘express emotions of pain, rage, joy, rebellion, sexuality, etc.’. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 55 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Critics invent straw opponents to sustain a sense of being embattled — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1210; Media ideology works through unspoken presumptions more than stated bias — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 766; Media bias is neither conspiracy nor freedom but overdetermined institutional convergence — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 858 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Mass media’s audience demands undermines their own ideological work #complicates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 55