Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Industrial dimension of mediatization: inquiry from cultural industries approach 79 tion. This paper examines this process on the cases of some per- forming arts fields and education. II – Cultural industries theory Theory of cultural industry is based on two theoretical pillars. First is the critical approach of the Frankfurt School. The second one is the political economy of communication. Central point for the early Frankfurt School was the so-called technical reproducibility which is driving the transformation of the cul- ture into the industrial good under market economy principles and laws (such as division of labor, standardization etc.) (HORK - HEIMER; ADORNO, 2002). Political economy of the communica- tion became a generic approach for the issue during the modern theories of the cultural industries (born after 1970 mainly in - side the French school and partly – British one). The main work of Horkheimer and Adorno (Dialectics of enlightenment) puts forward its main critical thesis on losing by the commercial art its transcendental character and its subor- dination to the market logics. Thesis is based on Benjamin’s idea of the reproducibility of art which leads to the progressive loose of the authenticity aura and its wide public orientation. While for Benjamin such process is more positive (because contribute to the acculturation of the larger population), for the Frankfurt School scholars it leads toward the division of labor, alienation from the result of creative work, constant miss of originality and free self-expression of the author. Here we can see birth of the main peculiarity of the concept of the industry. In the modern economic theory, the notion of indus- try is used to designate the specific branch of the economy (in - dustry of steel, automobile industry etc.). But from the critical school and political economy point of view this notion describes the mass mechanical reproduction of the good within the frame- work of the labor division. From this point of view, industry is opposing to the craft production. Such notion and understand- ing of the industry and industrialization is used in order to dis- tinguish industrial culture from another one (which remain to be based on the craft principles).