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The Frankfurt School stated that the culture industry created false needs in the pursuit of profit while ignoring the true needs of humans. According to The Frankfurt School the cultural industry and mass culture,“. . . shapes the tastes and preferences of the masses, thereby moulding their consciousness by instilling the desire for false needs”. (Strinati, 2004.55)

They point out that the capitalist industries bring in a lot of profit through what they called waste production. They generated products that, in the opinion of The Frankfurt School, the masses did not need. Masses become so enthralled in the culture industry that their consciousness is overridden. The masses become too interested in the falsehoods that the industry has created and tend to forget about satisfying their true human needs. The school argues that it is due to all of this that the culture industry maintains its stability.

With regards to true and false needs, Theodore Adorno once wrote, “The indistinguishability of true and false needs is an essential part of the present phase... one day it will be readily apparent that men do not need the trash provided them by the culture industry”.

Another point that The Frankfurt School has highlighted to us in order to contribute to our understanding of popular culture is that a lot of culture is very homogeneous. They believed that all aspects of popular culture were generic and predictable. They could not fathom the fact that the masses were accepting this constant reproduction of the same thing. They believed that people should want something more; something different and challenging. The culture industry followed a formula. The reason for the formulaic structure of the industry and the way in which its products were produces was because it was successful. This particular formula and method of mass producing standardised products generated profit.

When referring to this great power that the culture industry has, Adorno says,“Today anyone who is incapable of talking in the prescribed fashion, that is of effortlessly reproducing the formulas, conventions and judgements of mass culture as if they were his own, is threatened in his very existence, suspected of being an idiot or an intellectual.” (Adorno, 1991. 79)

Critics of The Frankfurt School say that they do not appreciate just how diverse and hybrid popular culture is. They also say that The Frankfurt School invest too much power in the culture industry and that they consider capitalism as being more stable than it actually is. Critics believe that the culture industry has a lot more potential than The Frankfurt School gives it credit for.

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