Mass audiences resist identification yet still accept the statistical ideology

Evidence

Even when the public does—exceptionally—rebel against the pleasure industry, all it can muster is that feeble resistance which that very industry has inculcated in it. Nevertheless, it has become increasingly difficult to keep people in this condition. The rate at which they are reduced to stupidity must not fall behind the rate at which their intelligence is increasing. In this age of statistics the masses are too sharp to identify themselves with the millionaire on the screen, and too slow-witted to ignore the law of the largest number. Ideology conceals itself in the calculation of probabilities. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘too sharp to identify, too slow-witted to ignore the law of the largest number’ paradox echoes the dialectic at the heart of Burns’s invocation of Adorno. — connects to: The public sphere collapses when the public becomes a statistical artifact — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 647; Some audiences resist by directing outrage at the framing rather than the case

Broader Connections

• The public sphere collapses when the public becomes a statistical artifact #expands (0.82) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 647
• Some audiences resist by directing outrage at the framing rather than the case #exemplifies (0.80)