Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuna
Firstly the 'Culture Industry' doesn't "want" anything - it doesn't have a mind, or a goal or an universal ethos. It's lazy to give a disparate collection of businesses and individuals a persona that conveniently suits your political beliefs.
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All it is is the "free market" principles worked out in a specific example that is concerned with "aesthetics" (which is why people are sometimes inclined towards judging it).
It's hardly any more or less than extrapolating from the ("anglosaxon") idea that "businesses must maximize profit/give dividends to shareholders". From that it fairly directly follows that they would want people to buy as much "culture" products as possible, which they will only do when the expiry date on bought products is shortly after buying. As such, they have a vested interest in promoting the idea that you must like "new" things (as the highest returns are on those), in creating an atmosphere in which a disparate amount of attention/emphasis is paid/put to/on the statements of the people whose products they're selling, (people buy stuff by famous people, after all, and famous people supposedly have something interesting to say, as they wouldn't have become famous otherwise) and in creating works that are meant for instant consumption and have little replay/reread value.
If they deviate from that it's only because they decide that different factors should be considered when deciding what kinds of products to deliver, not because "integrity" (or "artistic expression") fits into a Free Market notion about the supreme importance of profit maximization.
Anyway, I was hardly saying anything about alleged usefulness of twitter as a social medium, I was just wondering why you were putting so much emphasis on the fact that there was no wide adoption of the "new" media to the exclusion of the "old" ones. As though it was all a zero sum game.
You also seem to be (sort of) arguing that, since there isn't widespread adoption yet (after an apparently noteworthy interval of a decade or so), and because the current, improved products can be traced back to earlier versions which also weren't game-changing, there is no such thing as "gaining momentum", or a closer-now-than-before 'corner' that will be turned in the future either. the fact that most of the change has been evolutionary does not mean that changes 'in kind' cannot happen.
Yes, I realise you're not being entirely dogmatic, but the assumption/thought does seem to be in the background of your argument.