Re-reading Culture within the Framework of the Frankfurt School and the British Approach to Cultural Studies

Abstract

While culture is affirmed by the Frankfurt School in an elitist and narrow framework; the school of British Cultural Studies takes the concept in a much broader context, including all doings of subjects. Especially as a musicologist, in Theodor Adorno's texts, genres such as jazz and Stravinsky-style classical music are devalued; Atonal music that emphasizes the variety of notes in the composition is affirmed. The school of British Cultural Studies, on the other hand, takes care of the more mundane forms of culture and finds a resilient element in popular culture in a way that restores the dignity of the working-class culture that rooted its members. A working class subject will not have the chance to access and analyze the high cultural forms glorified by the Frankfurt School, and to use these forms effectively in cultural consumption activities. This study aims to evaluate this contrast in the approaches to culture of Frankfurt School and British Cultural Studies, which are included in Critical Communication Studies. It will question whether it is necessary to limit the resistance of the subjects within the higher forms of culture as the Frankfurt School claims. From the opposite perspective, it will question the possibility that the effort to exist within the structure can be realized through more casual and popular forms as Cultural Studies advocates. This study, which does not feed on a stance in favor of the Frankfurt School or British Cultural Studies, aims to evaluate the thesis of both approaches through the daily life and cultural production-consumption activities of the subjects.