Adorno on the Radio

• Date: 01 August 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591713505093
• Author: Shannon L. Mariotti
• Published date: 01 August 2014
• Subject Matter: Special Section: “Old” Media and Political Theory

Political Theory

2014, Vol. 42(4) 415 –442

© 2013 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591713505093

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Special Section: “Old” Media and Political Theory

Adorno on the Radio:

Democratic Leadership

as Democratic Pedagogy

Shannon L. Mariotti1

Abstract

This essay explores the political significance of two largely unexplored

texts on American radio that Adorno originally composed in English after

emigrating to the United States: Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory

and The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses. Here,

productively complicating the traditional image of him, Adorno translates

his theory to a broader public in ways that reflect a desire to understand

and inform democratic citizenship as enacted at the level of the everyday

customs, conventions, and habits of the people. Ultimately, Adorno’s

writings on radio in the United States show how he tries to strengthen the

substantive practice of democracy through a unique form of democratic

leadership as democratic pedagogy that represents the practical enactment

of an early version of negative dialectics. With this justification for Adorno’s

complicated commitments to democracy in mind, we might begin to read

him as a twentieth-century democratic theorist and productively turn to an

unlikely thinker, not just to read a message in a bottle but to help us chart

our current position and navigate our future course.

Keywords

Adorno, critical theory, democracy, democratic theory, radio

1Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Shannon L. Mariotti, Southwestern University, 1001 E. University Ave., Georgetown, TX

78626, USA.

Email: mariotts@southwestern.edu

505093PTX42410.1177/0090591713505093Political TheoryMariotti

research-article2013

416 Political Theory 42(4)

In 1937, Max Horkheimer sent a telegram to Theodor Adorno in England,

where he was living after fleeing Nazi Germany, to offer him a research posi-

tion with Paul Lazarsfeld’s Princeton Radio Research Project in New Jersey

and New York City. Adorno accepted so began his exploration of the United

States and radio, both of which would continue to preoccupy him after his

affiliation with Lazarsfeld’s group ended. Adorno wrote a study of a radio

demagogue, titled The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’

Radio Addresses, but he also (unsuccessfully) tried to publish his analysis of

American radio as a cultural object, later collected as Current of Music:

Elements of a Radio Theory.1 This volume contains pieces such as “Radio

Physiognomics,” “The Problem of a New Type of Human Being,” and “A

Social Critique of Radio Music.” Adorno did not just study radio from a dis-

tance, though, but also directly engaged it. In 1940, he designed and executed

a music education program for WNYC.

He lays out his vision for this series in the section of Current of Music

titled “What a Music Appreciation Hour Should Be.” Here, he argues that

music should be presented as a “human force” instead of a “fun commodity”

and emphasizes that “One should guide listeners towards greater true dis-

cernment and serious, critical independence.”2 He imagines dialogic

exchanges about the music: “Listeners should be encouraged to respond.

Questions or objections voiced in letters should be addressed for a few min-

utes in each session. Possibly one could also arrange discussions with listen-

ers” (“Music Appreciation,” 222). And Adorno tried to put this plan into

practice. Twelve lectures to begin the course are included in Current of Music,

but he also hosted five of these shows on WNYC during 1940.3

Adorno continued to engage radio after returning to Germany, delivering

lectures on philosophy and education throughout the 1960s. Many of these

radio addresses were later compiled as essays in Critical Models: Interventions

and Catchwords. For example, “Education after Auschwitz” (Pädagogik

nach Auschwitz”) was originally broadcast on Hessischer Rundfunk on April

19, 1966, “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America”

(“Wissenschaftliche Erfahrungen in den U.S.A.”) aired on Hessischer

Rundfunk on January 31, 1968, and “Critique” (“Kritik,”) ran on Sudeutscher

Rundfunk on 26 May 1969.4

This is all to underscore the point that radio figured prominently in

Adorno’s life, during his earliest days in the U.S. and after his return to

Germany. But these studies of radio are significant for more than their histori-

cal and biographical value.5 To date, Adorno’s writings on America have pri-

marily been read as a cultural and social history of his years in exile.6

However, the two studies on radio that are my focus here, The Psychological

Technique and Current of Music, may be most valuable when read in terms of