First of all, I'm sorry to say I missed the seminar due to moving to a new apartment. However, to delve deeper into the central themes presented by Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment as well as gain perspective on one of the authors, I decided to read more about Adorno himself as well as read an article by him titled "Culture Industry Reconsidered" from 1963.
After reading up on Adorno, I realized how the culture industry is a pretty broad subject that can be defined in various ways. In a historical context, Adorno himself grew up in Nazi Germany where he first-handedly experienced the results of mass deception in the forms of state propaganda from radio speeches and cinemas, for example. The culture industry in that time and place was severely limited and tainted by state ideals which conformed people to a single minded, brainwashed mass.
And so the link for the notion of mass deception in Nazi Germany to a broader perspective in an entire culture industry seems natural. The industry in culture industry is not an industrial one, but rather a sociological one built for the mind. Perhaps it's a bit harsh, but there are certainly parallels to state propaganda in how mainstream media produces money-making entities (e.g. singers) in a (by Adorno introduced term) "Star system" to a single minded, pacified mass of people who are taught what to like and what to wear.
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