Sun Ho's Questions - Week 4

My questions are all from "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception". This essay is the product of a particular historical moment – I assume that was why Horkheimer and Adorno focused more on the movie industry, radio and music rather than television and other forms of mass media that are more prevalent in today’s research. I wanted to think about their thesis in relation to our present society: (a) How does the present media environment prove/disprove their thesis?; (b) How do we distinguish an art based product from a commercial based one in our present society?; (c) With the Internet and other newer media, are we still “passive victims” of the Culture Industry?; (d) They introduce the notion that culture without pleasure becomes work, but do we agree with the notion, culture = entertainment? (e) After all, cultural products nowadays are produced through our pleasure and that’s how they market those products. Are we still passively accepting them without any resistance to “an ideology used to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce”?