Discuss Adorno's and the Frankfurt Sschools Concept that Celebrities Essay

Discuss Adorno's and the Frankfurt Sschools Concept that Celebrities Are One of the Means Through Twhich Capitalism Achieves it - Essay Example According to Boldrin and Levine (2002), â€Å"†¦countries are better off facilitating processes that are attractive to multinational companies and countries† (p. 212). Furthermore, the western culture has had the biggest influence on many other cultures in the world, to the angst or happiness of different people. The internet and the advent of computers have had a very big role to play in this spread of celebrity lifestyle. unlike in the past, with the click of the mouse, a fan can follow what their favorite celebrity is doing, what they eat, where they live and the minutest details of their lives. This, many people tend to imitate. This has led to many companies endorsing celebrities to market their products, banking on the fact that whatever the celebrities will be wearing, eating or be seen with will have the masses of their fans following suit, hence increase their sales. Needless to say, this does not come cheap, both to the endorsing companies and to the masses foll owing blindly. Social control is a phenomenon that is experienced by masses in the world, whether they are aware of it or not. It s described as the influence on individuals’ behaviors by institutions in the public through public opinion, social and religious organizations, use of force or violence, through appealing to people’s emotions and desires and also through use of leaders or celebrities in order to bring out certain reactions from the public in general. In the past, social control was a positive force that was meant to keep the fabric of society intact and keep evil and criminal activities at bay. However, with the media becoming more and more powerful, they have tapped into the idea of social control to influence people in order to gain monetary and other kinds of benefits, at the detriment of the whole society. This is seen through the influence caused by advertisements, TV and radio programs and wide coverage of celebrity lives, making masses desire the sam e kind and try to imitate this. Hui (2002) points out that â€Å"we found that, at least in the case of movies, the supply of creative work responded to economic incentives and consumer behavior† (p. 217.). The fact that the world has become largely capitalist is a factor that is stoking this flame. The result of this is mass deception, where the populations are made to believe that what they are seeing is the ideal of life and that they should strive to achieve these standards set by the media and celebrities. This is despite the fact that the lives celebrities live cost a fortune and cannot be achieved, at least in the short run, by most ordinary people. The result is that people have engaged in very destructive habits in order to buy into this deception. These habits include borrowing and using credit facilities beyond their means in order to get what the media has suggested, gambling, criminal activities, disregarding the old methods of working hard in order to achieve su ccess and instead depending too much on lotteries and wasting more money, amongst other socially deviant activities in order to feed their desires. According to The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" Adorno and Horkheimer Frankfurt school, this is exactly what the media and the celebrity culture is using to deceive the masses. In their argument, Adorno and Horkhe