Page 74 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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Siegfried Kracauer’s mass ornament 59
They are no longer events that happen to unfold in space and
time, but instead brand the transformation of space and time
itself as an event. Were this not the case, their contents would
not increasingly allow themselves to be determined by fashion.
For fashion effaces the intrinsic value of the things that come
under its dominion by subjecting the appearance of these
phenomena to periodic changes that are not based on any
relation to the thing themselves.
(1995: 67; original emphasis)

For our critical purposes, the crucial phrase here is periodic changes
that are not based on any relation to the thing themselves – this returns us
to the ideological critique of the commodity and its overarching
structure – the culture industry. Unlike the falsely concrete myth
that still has an intimate relationship to the forms which embody
that myth, the space in which the culture industry makes its profit is
this essential lack of meaningful substance within the form of
cultural expression (in this case, Banality TV). This essential lack is
the same as that which exists in the notion of travel for its own sake.
Movement through homogeneous space as an end in itself closely
mirrors the self-justifying movements (whether they be mere eye
movements amid media content or physical trips between shops) of
both the media viewer and commodity consumer: ‘The adventure of
movement as such is thrilling, and slipping out of accustomed spaces
and times into as yet unexplored realms arouses the passions: the
ideal here is to roam freely through the dimensions. This spatio-
temporal double life could hardly be craved with such intensity, were
it not the distortion of real life’ (Kracauer 1995: 68; original
emphases). The degree to which this distortion is acknowledged and
the relative importance placed upon it distinguishes the culture
industry critic from the cultural populist.

Conclusion: distraction revisited and the culture
industry introduced

The divergence of Benjamin and Kracauer’s positions is brought into
focus by considering their respective treatment of the concept of
‘distraction’ and its relation to cinema. Levin suggests that in the
‘Cult of distraction’ essay:
Kracauer locates the emancipatory potential of a distracted
mode of reception in its capacity to retool perceptual and
motor skills for the sensorial economy of modernity, whose
most salient characteristics are its speed and abrupt transitions
– the very hallmark of cinema as the school of ‘shock’ which
Benjamin would celebrate.

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