The culture industry predetermines discourse so that truth itself becomes implausible.

Evidence

Things have come to a pass where lying sounds like truth, truth like lying. Each statement, each piece of news, each thought has been preformed by the centres of the culture industry. Whatever lacks the familiar trace of such pre-formation lacks credibility, the more so because the institutions of public opinion accompany what they send forth by a thousand factual proofs and all the plausibility that total power can lay hands on. Truth that opposes these pressures not only appears improbable, but is in addition too feeble to make any headway in competition with their highly-concentrated machinery of dissemination. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 122

Categorization

• XREF: Core Adorno thesis connecting to Dialectic of Enlightenment’s culture-industry chapter and Habermas on systematically distorted communication. — connects to: The culture industry is defined by repetition under a false formula of totality; The capitalist world’s essence is abomination yet its lying appearance stands in for truth. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 142; Culture-industry products are consumed but not actually believed. (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism whereby prefabrication confers credibility precisely by being recognizable — a paradigm-shifting account of how truth loses traction in media-saturated society.

Broader Connections

• Culture-industry products are consumed but not actually believed. #expands (0.82)
• American culture compels flattery and resists truth-telling about itself #exemplifies (0.75) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 65