Interpreting the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse’s Approach from the Perspective of Sociology of Communication

Authors : Sevil Bal

Pages : 1097-1109

Doi:10.30586/pek.1605202

View : 64 | Download : 113

Publication Date : 2025-09-19

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Herbert Marcuse, one of the leading representatives of the Frankfurt School, addresses the conditions that give rise to ‘One-Dimensional Man’ through a political, philosophical, economic, cultural bridge from technology to political domination. Key themes such as the fragmentation of needs, the deconstruction of freedom, the dysfunctionality of mass media, methodological myopia offer a structural critique in the field of sociology of communication. Sociology of communication examines communication as a practice that constructs individual and collective relations, institutions, values, and evaluates its transformation in the context of mass media and social phenomena and processes. Based on this framework, the study aims to conduct a theoretical discussion problematized on six main axes: the debate on freedom, the critique of consumerism, the approach to technology and mass media, the emphasis on methodology, and the theory of liberation by identifying the main research orientations in Herbert Marcuse\\\'s sociology and works in the field of communication studies, starting from the historical context of the Frankfurt School. In conclusion, Marcuse\\\'s focus on “social individual”, his positioning of technology and mass media in the construction of “oppressive tolerance”, his evaluations on the relationship between technique and politics, his discussion of one-dimensionality and consumerism, the dilemma between real and artificial needs, and the contributions of his concept of freedom, which he defines through “libidinal rationality”, to communication studies have been evaluated from a sociological perspective.
Keywords : İletişim sosyolojisi, Frankfurt Okulu, Herbert Marcuse

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