The Study On Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory Of Mass Culture

In30-50s of the20th century, with the flourishing of Western popular culture, Frankfurt school’s critical theory of mass culture gradually stands out from the many genres of Western culture and becomes the mainstream ideology of cultural studies and cultural criticism in this period. Furthermore, the theory is one of the core issues of its social critical theory. It is the template that the later literature theory workers must refer in popular culture studies. Firstly, this paper analyses the cultural critique of the theory more detailed and systematically, and discusses the theory of the existence of rationality on the basis of the current status of China with the development of popular culture. The theoretical research and the construction of the current popular culture in China can learn nutrition from its critique of mass culture of the theory. In addition to the introduction of this article, the paper is mainly composed of four chapters.The introduction mainly analyses and summarizes the present situation of popular culture critical theory of Frankfurt school from domestic and foreign. The introduction also points out that, it is necessary for us to analyze and explain Chinese popular culture criticism framework of cultural theory of Frankfurt School with the rise of the current state of development of Chinese native mass culture perplexing and cultural studies. This is the necessary preparation to make further develop the native mass culture theory research and construction.In the first chapter, the author explains the concepts, compares mass culture of the Frankfurt school’s critical theory to that of the macro in the sense of popular culture, and distinguishes "certain culture","mass culture" and "culture industry". Through analyzing the evolution of the three similar concepts in the theory of mass culture of Frankfurt school, we can see that it is different from the mass culture produced in the industrial age, and widely popular in ordinary in the common sense. The concept of mass culture in the theory of Frankfurt school culture reveals the severe irony and critique of capitalist culture more clearly.In the second chapter, the author mainly investigates the background and main content of mass culture of the critical theory and context theory of Frankfurt school. The author also points out that the theorist of Frankfurt school, who faced the expansion of instrumental rationality brought about by the cultural crisis of capitalist society and living predicament of modern people, forming the core content of the theory of cultural criticism in Nazi Germany and the modern American totalitarian rule. The author makes severe criticism of the capitalism mass culture from of morphological dimensions, political economics, aesthetics, and consciousness and studied the capitalist popular culture from the cultural roots of alien rule and realized the function of social criticism to cultural critique.In the third chapter, the author analyzes the contribution and historical limitations of the Critical Theory of Mass Culture in Frank School. The paper points out that the theory deepens the spirit of Marx’s social critique, broadens the critique of capitalism path and opens up a new perspective of cultural criticism as a starting point from a unique cultural perspective critique of capitalist society. However, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory culture also suffered some disagreement because of its profound criticism of the multi-party. The theorists who hold elitist stance and criticism of cultural outlook pessimistic outlook and public school were squeezed into awkward socially marginalized.The fourth chapter focuses on the important significance of the cultural critique theory to the current Chinese popular culture theory research. We treat this theory neither be plunged into "adorno model", nor "out of adorno mode". We can not be extreme both to its theory study and to criticize. On the basis of learning, the mode of cultural criticism must be formed conforms to the development of popular culture in our country, so as to better guide the construction of Chinese characteristic of popular culture, that’s what we should be focus on more.