[FRA:] Adorno on public opinion

[Andrew J Perrin]

Delighted you found the article and found it useful. A colleague and I are 
in the midst of a *much* larger, related project: translation and 
explanatory material of _Gruppenexperiment: Ein Studienbericht_, the first 
major study by the Frankfurt School after its return to Germany and one 
that anticipates many of the more recent critiques of public opinion 
research. If all goes as planned, it should be published in 2009.

Andy Perrin

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Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin at unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
Associate Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA


On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Adorno, Theodor W. "Opinion Research and Publicness
> (Meinungsforschung und Offentlichkeit)", translated with an
> introduction by Andrew J. Perrin & Lars Jarkko, Sociological Theory,
> vol. 23, no. 1, Mar 2005, pp. 116-123.
>
> Abstract:
>     We present a short introduction to, & the first English language
>     translation of, Theodor W. Adorno's 1964 article,
>     "Meinungsforschung und Offentlichkeit." In this article,
>     Adorno situates the misunderstanding of public opinion within a
>     dialectic of elements of publicness itself: empirical publicness'
>     dependence on a normative ideology of publicness, & modern
>     publicness' tendency to undermine its own principles. He also locates
>     it in the dual role of mass media as both for the expression of
>     opinion &, as he calls them, "organs of public opinion."
>     The introduction provides a discussion of Adorno's reception in the
>     American academy, arguing that contemporary sociological practice
>     should be concerned with the problems Adorno raises. We suggest that
>     Adorno's relegation to the fields of philosophy & aesthetics
>     belies his relevance to empirical sociological research. 1 Table, 17
>     References. Adapted from the source document.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A timely discovery on my part, given the most manipulative
> engineering of the Democratic Party presidential primaries to date.
>
> Adorno traces the linkage between opinion research and market
> research, and the role of both in the manipulation of consumers (with
> respect to commodities and politics both), as well as the history and
> nature of "publicness". Opinion research, which is essentially one
> with market research, does not merely register the opinions of the
> public; it serves to keep the masses immature and undermine their
> capacity for independent thought. Public consumption of information
> is akin to the audience for theater. The study of public opinion
> should be an object of study rather than a tool to be wielded uncritically.
>
> A brief citation analysis supports the translators' contention that
> Adorno has been undervalued as a sociological theorist.  Furthermore,
> much of Adorno's sociological output remains untranslated into
> English, in contrast to other of his works.
>
> There is a close relation between this essay and Habermas' work on
> the public sphere.  Adorno argues that the constitution of publicness
> has undermined the development of an independent deliberative public.
>
> The translators' summary is illuminating, but Adorno's actual essay
> in translation makes some specific trenchant remarks of note.  The
> registry of public opinion is not done to reflect public opinion but
> to control it.   The masses are made into "an appendage of the
> machinery of public opinion".  Publicness is surreptitiously tied to
> the shaky status of the private. A more responsible (and
> non-positivistic) approach to opinion research could fulfill a
> critical social function.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Riddle: How many obamas does it take to screw in a light bulb?
>
>
>
>
>
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