Cultural Industry and “Valentine’s Day” As One Of Its Products

Where and by whom the notion of “culture” was used for the first time is essentially not known. But it is generally stated to be a complicated integral structure which includes the human being’s knowledge, art, morality, traditions and also habits and abilities, as it was explained by Edward Tylor in his book named “Primitive Culture” in the year of 1871. In the definition of UNESCO, it is a united phenomenon that involves specific material, spiritual, moral, intellectual and emotional attributions and it includes not only science and literature but also the mankind’s lifestyles, fundamental rights, values, traditions and beliefs. The effects of developing technology on human life has substantially changed the contents of culture. Thus the new form of culture is now commonly called “popular culture” which consists of two elements: One of them is the notion of “popular” that means “things belonging and relating to public opinion”, “things loved by everybody” and “specific to the mass” and the second one is “culture” just as it was described before. “Popular culture” means both “the things suitable to ordinary people” and “the things accepted by the whole mass”. The commercialization of life through the developing technology and constantly changing economic conditions have brought several facts out: First of all, popular culture has always been produced and managed by the dominant economic powers all over the world. Secondly, the products of culture have commercially been standardized and the monopoly of their distribution has been rationalized and this case made out the notion of “cultural industry” in the end. Relatively, Adorno ve Horkheimer from Frankfurt school used the term of “cultural industry” for the culture of modern age, getting the basics of the present fact of commoditization process of cultural elements.Fast development of mass communication means and their settlement in the center of human life have caused both individual and social life change to a great extent. So, it began to determine even what people will eat, what they will wear, for what they will be happy or sad in the whole course of life. What is more, going a lot further, it invented private days, nights and weeks to be celebrated. Horkheimer ve Adorno described this artificial way of life as “cultural industry”. The methof of “literature review” was used in this theoritical work in which “Valentine’s Day” celebrated on February 14th every year is analyzed in the frame of cultural industry. In addition to that, a sample case study was used. In this context, the notion of “cultural industry” was examined deeply. Then the subjects of how cultural industry has changed the habits of consumption, how it has created new ones and also how it has kept the demand alive so far were researched and analyzed at full length. Besides, it was infered and concluded that the frame of information compiled throughout this work is significantly current for today’s contemporary societies.