Who organises the choices we make?

A viewer opens a fictional streaming service and finds hundreds of titles. There are different faces, languages and settings. Yet many programmes follow the same competition format, place similar products before the camera and turn success into a contest for visibility. How much difference lies beneath the variety?

This is one route into the Frankfurt School. Its thinkers examined how economic organisation, culture, authority and human desires become entangled. They asked why societies that promise freedom can also reproduce domination—and why people may come to accept arrangements that constrain them.

The Frankfurt School names an intellectual tradition associated with the Institute for Social Research and the development of critical theory. It is not one communication model with a single set of variables. Its contributors disagreed, changed their positions and asked different questions across generations.

For media study, the approach shifts attention from an isolated message to the conditions under which culture is produced, circulated and experienced. Who finances a programme? Which forms are repeated? How is difference marketed? What do audiences actually do with what they encounter?

A research programme shaped by crisis and exile.

The Institute for Social Research was founded in Frankfurt in 1923 with support from Felix Weil. Carl Grünberg was its first director. Under Max Horkheimer, it developed an interdisciplinary programme connecting philosophy with social research, economics and psychology. Its response to capitalism also addressed authoritarianism and the appeal of fascism.

Historical guide: Institute for Social Research; Horkheimer’s essay; Horkheimer and Adorno’s book.

Three intellectual resources

Marx’s critique of capitalism supplied questions about labour, commodities, class and domination. German philosophy, including Kant and Hegel, supplied questions about reason, history and contradiction. Psychoanalysis offered ways of investigating how authority and social pressures enter desires, anxieties and character.

This combination did not mean that earlier Marxism ignored culture or that every Frankfurt thinker agreed about Freud. It opened an interdisciplinary inquiry into how economic arrangements and lived experience sustain one another.

Explain the arrangement. Examine its promises.

For Horkheimer, critical theory reflects on the social conditions and purposes of knowledge, rather than treating the researcher as standing wholly outside society. It asks how existing arrangements arose, whose interests they serve and how domination might be overcome. The orientation includes a practical concern with human freedom. Horkheimer, 1937/1972.

This does not make careful description, interviews or statistics unnecessary. A study can count ownership links or analyse a survey while also asking why those relationships matter. The distinction concerns the wider organisation and purpose of inquiry, not a ban on particular methods.

Immanent critique: test a practice against its own promise.

Suppose a fictional platform advertises equal opportunities for every creator. Its documented rules give paying accounts preferential access to discovery tools. A study can examine the tension between the promise and the distribution of visibility. This is an example of immanent critique: drawing a critical standard partly from the institution’s own commitments.

Further questions remain. What does the promise mean? How large is the advantage? Are other discovery routes available? The contradiction must be argued from evidence, not announced because the platform charges money.

Instrumental reason: efficiency towards which end?

An instrumental calculation asks how to achieve a given goal efficiently. Critical reflection also asks whether the goal is justified. A university might measure a learning site by time spent on it. The site could increase that number while making answers harder to find. The measurement works; the chosen end may fail the educational purpose.

Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of Enlightenment addresses a deeper tension: reason’s promise of liberation can become entangled with mastery and domination. It is not simply a proposal to abandon reason or scientific knowledge. Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947/2002.

When difference is organised for sale.

Horkheimer and Adorno’s culture industry concept examines cultural production organised through commodity exchange, concentrated economic power and repeatable commercial forms. It challenges the idea that mass-market culture simply grows spontaneously from the audience’s wishes. Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947/2002.

“Industry” does not mean that every artwork is literally assembled on a conveyor belt. A song can involve skilled performers and still circulate within a system that packages difference, manages risk and favours familiar forms.

Commodification

Organising a cultural work, experience or capacity for exchange and sale. Ask what is sold, who controls it and under which terms.

Standardisation

Recurrence of an underlying format or structure across apparently distinct products. Establish the pattern through comparison.

Pseudo-individualisation

Distinctive details that present standardised products as individual choices without substantially changing their organising scheme.

Ideology

Ways of understanding society that can make historically produced arrangements appear natural, necessary or beyond serious question.

Adorno developed standardisation and pseudo-individualisation in his analysis of popular music. The concepts concern the relationship between a whole and its variations, not a count of how many colours or performers a product contains. Adorno, 1941.

Look beneath a change of costume.

In an invented set of talent programmes, new judges, settings and songs might sit within the same sequence of auditions, rankings, elimination and a final winner. That is a possible case of structural repetition. To argue pseudo-individualisation, show how the advertised differences leave the relevant structure largely intact.

Genre conventions alone do not settle the argument. A familiar form can also carry significant artistic, linguistic or political differences. Investigate what the variation changes, rather than treating similarity as proof that every work is interchangeable.

A tradition with arguments inside it.

Keep the authors’ questions distinct. A concept developed by one contributor should not become a doctrine attributed to everyone associated with Frankfurt.

Marcuse: needs have a social history.

In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse asks how advanced industrial society integrates people through needs and satisfactions that help reproduce its organisation. His notion of false needs concerns desires shaped by social interests in domination; a satisfying experience can still sustain an unfree arrangement. Marcuse, 1964.

This is a demanding evaluative claim. An analyst must justify why a need supports domination. “I dislike this product” or “someone enjoys buying it” is insufficient. Ask about the conditions under which desires form and the possibilities people have to reflect on them.

Fromm: freedom can be difficult to inhabit.

Fromm connects modern independence with possible isolation and anxiety. He examines why people may escape uncertainty through submission or conformity, rather than develop a more active freedom. This links social conditions with character and emotional life; it does not diagnose an individual from one media preference. Fromm, 1941.

Benjamin: reproduction changes more than access.

Benjamin examines how reproduction changes art’s unique presence and authority—often discussed through aura—and shifts its relation to ritual, exhibition and politics. Wider circulation can unsettle older forms of authority and open new forms of reception; it can also serve domination. His argument cannot be reduced to “copies are worthless.” Benjamin, 2008 collection.

Habermas: publicity is not the same as public reasoning.

A public sphere is a social space in which matters of common concern can be discussed and public opinion formed. Habermas’s historical account examines the rise and transformation of a bourgeois public sphere. Its relevance to media lies partly in the difference between addressing citizens through reasons and managing them as consumers or spectators. Habermas, 1962/1989.

A widely seen post is therefore not automatically evidence of a strong public sphere. Ask who can participate, whose reasons receive a hearing and how discussion connects with decision-making.

Take the critique seriously. Test its reach.

What this approach brings into view

• Power behind cultural choice. Ownership, labour, commissioning and distribution become part of media analysis.
• The organisation of desire. Preferences can be studied as socially formed, rather than treated only as starting facts.
• Standards for criticism. Freedom, autonomy and participation supply questions about what media arrangements should enable.
• Contradictions within progress. Greater technical capacity can coexist with reduced control over the terms of life.

Where the argument needs challenge

Audience activity: viewers interpret, adapt, parody and organise. A theory of cultural production should not substitute for evidence of reception. Cultural hierarchy: a critique can slide into the analyst’s preference for prestigious art. Explain what makes a form restrictive or enabling, beyond taste.

Historical transfer: arguments written around radio, cinema and industrial capitalism need careful reconstruction before being applied to a personalised feed. The grounds of judgment: terms such as autonomy or domination require explanation. A strong critique identifies whose freedom is constrained, by which relationship, and compared with which feasible alternative.

Fraser’s challenge to a single public sphere

Nancy Fraser questions whether participation can become equal merely by setting social inequalities aside within discussion. She also argues for recognising multiple publics, including counterpublics that develop alternative interpretations and concerns. Her intervention extends and challenges public-sphere theory; it should not be attributed to the early Frankfurt School as though everyone shared one position. Fraser, 1990.

One fictional service. Three lines of inquiry.

Write a claim in three layers.

First state a fact from the case. Then interpret it through a concept. Finally explain the criterion that supports your evaluation. If you cannot identify which layer a sentence belongs to, rewrite it.

Reconstruct the question before carrying it forward.

The early writers did not study today’s streaming services, recommendation systems or generative AI. Their concepts can guide contemporary inquiry when the differences in technology, labour, ownership and participation remain visible. The applications below are proposed research questions, not claims that the original authors predicted these systems.

Personalisation: a different list or a different structure?

Imagine two users receiving different video selections. Their lists might vary substantially while the service rewards the same pacing, emotional hooks or purchasing opportunities. Alternatively, personalisation might help them encounter genuinely different forms. Compare actual outputs and conditions before deciding which account fits.

Creators: more voices within whose rules?

A service can lower the cost of publishing while also setting terms for visibility and payment. Ask who owns the work, how creators earn, which labour remains unpaid and what happens when a creator challenges the rules. These questions need evidence from the service, creators and cultural works.

For an Indian classroom project, a defined sample of Bengali and Hindi entertainment can help test whether similar formats also carry different meanings. Treat language, performance traditions and production arrangements as matters to investigate. A shared format does not erase those differences.

AI production: efficiency towards which cultural ends?

Suppose a fictional production team uses an AI tool to generate many script variations from a successful template. More outputs would not, by itself, demonstrate greater cultural variety. Compare narrative structures, sources, authorship conditions and the range of alternatives that reach audiences.

The same tool might also help a small team experiment with forms it could not previously produce. A critical account should investigate both possibilities. State who gains control, who supplies the labour and whose criteria define success.

Public discussion: count more than comments.

A large number of responses does not establish equal participation. Examine who sets the agenda, whose contributions receive attention, whether reasons can be challenged and how decisions respond. Habermas and Fraser offer different resources for interpreting those conditions; neither can be reduced to an engagement metric.

Make the interpretation answerable to evidence.

A manageable project might compare the promise of audience choice with the organisation of a small set of talent programmes. The purpose is not to prove that all commercial culture works in one way. It is to explain a bounded case and justify a criticism, if the evidence supports it.

1. Define the case and the question.

   Specify the programmes, language, release period and platform. Ask a question such as: how do the service’s claims about choice relate to the formats, participation rules and variations in six selected episodes? Explain what your sample can represent.

2. Define the concepts before applying them.

   For standardisation, list the structural features to compare. For pseudo-individualisation, specify what would count as a surface difference and what would count as a consequential one. Include evidence that could weaken your interpretation.

3. Document the institutional conditions.

   Use identifiable ownership information, published rules, credits, promotional statements and credible production accounts. Record sources and dates. An advertising model alone does not establish a particular sponsor’s influence over a particular scene.

4. Compare the cultural works closely.

   Record repeated sequences, visual and musical cues, treatment of success and failure, and meaningful departures. If coding features across works, establish clear rules and check consistency. Preserve examples that do not fit your expectation.

5. Investigate reception where your claim requires it.

   Voluntary interviews with adult viewers can examine enjoyment, disagreement and uses. Public discussions can show some visible interpretations but do not represent everyone watching. Avoid collecting identifying details that the study does not need.

6. Justify the critical judgment.

   State the criterion: meaningful choice, autonomy, fair participation or another argued standard. Explain who faces a constraint and what alternative could reduce it. Distinguish your own criterion from an institution’s promise when using immanent critique.

7. Report limits and revise the argument.

   Separate what you observed from what you inferred. A small sample cannot establish the whole industry’s operation. A textual pattern cannot establish a universal audience effect. Explain which additional evidence would change your conclusion.

Strengthen an overstatement.

Develop your methods further: Content Analysis · Ethnography · Research Methodology.

Watch for the question each thinker asks.

What is Frankfurt School

Before watching, choose one example of media choice. Afterwards, explain it through two different thinkers without attributing the same position to both.

Three viewing prompts

1. Which claim concerns production, which concerns a cultural form and which concerns an audience?
2. How do Benjamin’s questions about reproduction differ from the culture-industry critique?
3. Which concept would help you criticise an institution using its own stated promise?

Make the argument before opening the explanation.

Choose an answer and write your reason in a notebook. These questions support self-study; answers are not submitted or automatically scored.

Applied task · Write 500–700 words

Choose a bounded media case: a set of talent-show episodes, advertisements, creator videos or a clearly labelled fictional service. Apply two concepts from the chapter. Describe the institutional conditions and cultural features that matter, then explain what audience evidence would strengthen or challenge your interpretation.

State the criterion supporting your criticism. Consider a serious alternative explanation and identify one limit of your conclusion. Include a paragraph explaining how another thinker in this chapter might redirect the question.

Ready to move on?

• I can explain critical theory without reducing it to finding faults.
• I can distinguish standardisation, pseudo-individualisation and personalisation.
• I can distinguish the questions asked by Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse and Habermas.
• I can support a critical argument with evidence and justify its standard of judgment.

Keep freedom and its conditions in the same frame.

The Frankfurt School makes cultural choice a question about institutions, social relations and the formation of desires. Its arguments are strongest when the analysis identifies a concrete arrangement, explains the constraint and states the grounds for criticism. Keep the differences among thinkers—and the possibilities within cultural practice—in view.

Quick glossary

Critical theory

A tradition of inquiry concerned with explaining and overcoming domination, while reflecting on its own social position and standards.

Immanent critique

Criticism that examines a practice against commitments or possibilities within that practice.

Instrumental reason

Reasoning that calculates means towards a given end; the end itself also needs justification.

Culture industry

Cultural production and circulation organised through commercial structures, repeatable forms and the management of consumption.

Standardisation

Recurrence of an underlying scheme across distinct cultural products.

Pseudo-individualisation

Marketed individuality that leaves a standardised organising scheme substantially intact.

False needs

Marcuse’s evaluative concept for needs shaped by social interests that sustain domination.

Aura

Benjamin’s concept concerning a work’s unique presence, historical situation and authority.

Public sphere

A social space for discussion of matters of common concern and the formation of public opinion.

Counterpublics

Alternative discursive arenas in which participants develop and circulate interpretations and concerns that challenge dominant publics.

Read in three steps

Begin with Horkheimer’s essay and the culture-industry chapter in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Compare Benjamin with Adorno on culture and technology. Then read Habermas alongside Fraser to examine the conditions of public discussion.

Dates distinguish original works from later English editions where relevant. The links lead to institutional resources, publisher or book records, and selected primary texts. Some full texts may require institutional access.

1. Institute for Social Research. (n.d.). The history of the IfS. Read the Institute’s history
   Institutional foundation, exile and reopening.
2. Horkheimer, M. (1972). Traditional and critical theory. In Critical theory: Selected essays (M. J. O’Connell et al., Trans., pp. 188–243). Continuum. (Original essay published 1937) View the book record and preview
   The relation between social inquiry, knowledge and emancipation.
3. Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (G. Schmid Noerr, Ed.; E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Book originally published 1947) Publisher edition details and contents · PDF
   The culture-industry chapter and the critique of Enlightenment.
4. Adorno, T. W. (1941). On popular music (with the assistance of G. Simpson). Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9, 17–48. Reprinted in Essays on music (R. Leppert, Ed., 2002). University of California Press. View the publisher’s collection record
   Standardisation and pseudo-individualisation. The linked collection is a later reprint.
5. Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Beacon Press. Read chapter 1 on the Marcuse website
   Needs, satisfaction and the narrowing of alternatives.
6. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. Farrar & Rinehart. View the 1941 book record
   Freedom, anxiety and conformity. An author’s later foreword is available from the Fromm estate · PDF.
7. Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, and other writings on media (M. W. Jennings, B. Doherty, & T. Y. Levin, Eds.; E. Jephcott et al., Trans.). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. View the collection record
   A collection containing Benjamin’s earlier essays; 2008 is this edition’s date.
8. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger, with F. Lawrence, Trans.). MIT Press. (Original work published 1962) View the publisher’s record
   A historical account of the public sphere and its transformation.
9. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, (25/26), 56–80. View the journal record
   Inequality, counterpublics and a critique of public-sphere theory.