Theme 2: Critical media studies

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment

a. What is "Enlightenment"?

Enlightenment is in the text described as something you perceive/reach in “the widest sense as the advance of thought”. Then, people are revealed from fear, since you fear what you don’t know. You become master of your mind, gathering knowledge about what used to be unknown. Myths and beliefs, earlier unknown and something you couldn’t prove, are now within your knowledge. Whats going on in your mind, now matches with nature.This enlightenment make people master of nature. The purpose of enlightenment is to use our knowledge to research natural creations instead of myths.  

b. What is "dialectic"?

Dialectic is a method used to find the truth when we’re dealing with two different facts. Earlier this week, in theme 1, we talked about perception and the fact that two persons can see the same thing but percieve it in different ways. In such situations, dealing with different opinions, we need to find which of them is true. By discussing it with logical thinking and reason and considering the ideas with the opposite, we find the actual facts - with a dialectic method.

c. What is "nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism defines some things as existing and says that other things don’t exist. It separates “real” objects from the abstract, and means that universal objects are just names without real existence. Nominalism is an important concept since the texts talks about enlightenment and people exterminating myths to gain knowledge instead. By nominalistic thoughts, myths and fantasies will be deselected.

d. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

Just like knowledge revealed people from fear, myths also did. Myths were created to explain what was unknown and inexplicable. The enlightment tries to remove the myths since they lack of scientific proof.

(“According to Adorna and Horkheimer, myth is a product of enlightenment.“)

2. "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"

a. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

Superstructure and substructure are terms trying to explain the relation och connection between production and economy. Superstructure is a term about the society factors such as religion, media, education, laws, culture etc. Factors that impel society to development. Superstructues are driven and affected by substructure. If the substructure is good, then it will affect the superstructures positively. You can say that sub- and superstructures describe class society, which is not appreciated from a Marxist perspective.

b. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Benjamin did indeed see the revolutionary potentials in culture. One example is the technology of fotographing and recordings. This technology changed both cultural industries but especially the ability of discovering the world.

But, even if Benjamin sees potential, he does not like technology in terms of making art. Taking a picture does not have the same deep as painting a painting. But, in a enleightenment-way of thinking, the technology is appreciated since it a way of showing the trueth

c. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

When people perceive things, in this case art, with their own mind, body and senses, it’s called a natural determined perception. And like we talked about perception in theme 1, people will percieve the art diffenrent. But, talking about historically determinded perception instead, the perception will change according time, just like the society and culture does.

d. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Benjamin talks about aura as a “natural object of distance”. An aura can surround people, but also art. But it can not be reproduced, therefore, a painting can have an aura but not a photography.