阿多诺与威廉斯两种文化工业理论之哲学初探

A Philosophical Primer on Two Theories of Cultural Industry, Adorno and Williams

文化工业是由法兰克福学派所提出的用于解释和批判在资本主义制度下出现的文化商业化以及工业化现象。这里的文化工业是被作为商品和意识形态统治的工具出现的,“在工业社会中产生,以都市大众为消费对象,通过大众传播媒介传播的无深度的、模式化的、易复制的、按照市场规律批量生产的文化产品”。作为一种历史发展之产物,以阿多诺为代表的法兰克福学派与以威廉斯为代表的伯明翰学派对文化工业现象之态度却全然不同。阿多诺作为文化工业概念的提出者,其大众文化批判理论受到学界普遍关注与研究,但面对文化工业是否只有负面影响的质疑,伯明翰学派对文化工业的诸多方面做出了正面的肯定回答。对于两种不同的文化工业理论之研究有助于学界更全面认识文化工业的产生、发展及影响,也有助于更好引导我国的文化发展方向。

The cultural industry was developed by the Frankfurt School to explain and critique the commer-cialisation and industrialisation of culture in the capitalist system. The cultural industry here emerges as an instrument of commodity and ideological domination, “a depthless, schematic, easily reproducible, mass-produced cultural product produced in an industrial society, intended for con-sumption by the urban masses and disseminated through the mass communication media in ac-cordance with the laws of the market”. As a product of historical development, the Frankfurt School, represented by Adorno, and the Birmingham School, represented by Williams, had very different approaches to the phenomenon of the cultural industry. Adorno, as the originator of the concept of the culture industry, and his critical theory of popular culture, have received widespread attention and research, but is the culture industry really only negative and only painful, while the Birming-ham School has come to a positive conclusion about the many aspects of the culture industry. A study of the two different theories of the cultural industry will help the academic community to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the emergence, development and impact of the cul-tural industry, and will also help to better guide the direction of cultural development in China.