In this chapter I want to introduce some of the basic ideas that were developed by the Frankfurt School and to give a brief history of the Institute for Social Research, before outlining how their main concepts will be discussed in relation to the digital.

The aim is to give a brief contextualization for later discussions for those not already familiar with the work of the Frankfurt School. Indeed, for readers already well versed in critical theory, they are welcome to skip the first section.

I begin by outlining a history of critical theory and particularly the concepts and ideas of the Frankfurt School. Here, due to limitations on space, I draw particularly on the work of Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, while accepting that other members of the Frankfurt School made important contributions that may not agree with these thinkers.¹ Indeed as Outhwaite (2012) cogently explains, the notion of a unitary school or theory is problematic, quoting Habermas's warning,

The suggestive fiction of a unitary school should not divert too much energy to self-thematisation in the history of ideas. We should do no better to turn to the problems themselves, to see how far one can get with the ruthlessly revisionist exploitation of the stimulative potential of such a diverse tradition of research. (Outhwaite 2012: vi)

Nonetheless, one can note that critical theorists share some commonalities, notably in reacting to Kant's critical philosophy and, therefore, the importance of Kant to the early Frankfurt School. Kant's critical philosophy specifies the object of critique, that which critique acts upon. Secondly, it specifies the subject of critique, namely the agent that carries out the critique. Lastly, his critical philosophy is reflexive in seeking to understand the rational limitations of rationality itself, thus it is self-critical. Although Kant's philosophy was itself a subject of critique from critical theory, the self-reflective critical model remains important in that there is ‘never equivalence between thought and its object - that is, the concept of experience still plays a central philosophical role in critical theory' (Rush 2004: 10).

Thus, following Habermas's call and in the spirit of turning to the problems themselves and the time in which one is living, this chapter aims to tackle the questions raised by the digital and the computational by drawing on this diverse set of thinkers. Indeed, today systems built on computational principles that reduce thinking to calculation and instrumental rationality deserve careful study. I argue that critical theory is a unique resource for giving critical purchase on such a ‘computational' society, a society which increasingly seeks to mechanize the processes of thinking, a reliance on calculation that Horkheimer had already identified in 1947 in relation to capitalism, such that,

Concepts have been reduced to summaries of the characteristics that several specimens have in common. By denoting similarity, concepts eliminate the bother of enumerating qualities and thus serve better to organize the material of knowledge. They are thought of as mere abstractions of the items to which they refer. Any use of transcending auxiliary, technical summarization of factual data has been eliminated as a last trace of superstition. Concepts have become "streamlined”' rationalized, labour-saving devices... thinking itself has been reduced to the level of industrial processes... in short, made part and parcel of production. (Horkheimer 2004: 15)

This chapter will, therefore, examine critical theory and seek to begin to articulate a critical theory of the digital in response to this problematic today. One way it does this is by looking into the very structures of the digital itself, through an active critical engagement with digital code and the way in which it is structured and assembled, and drawing from and developing critical concepts and theories from the Frankfurt School and other critical theorists. For example, what problems and solutions surface in computational societies? What political problems are identified as emblematic or requiring engagement and resolution, particularly by the state? Equally, the tendency for solutions to be cast in a technical register with software being the catalyst for change or resolution is also a striking feature in the growing computationalism of our societies.

As Marcuse argues, ‘the choice of a technical rather than a political or moral solution to a social problem is politically and morally significant' (Feenberg 2004).

to lay the foundation for an exploration, in an interdisciplinary research context, of questions concerning the conditions which make possible the reproduction and transformation of society, the meaning of culture, the relation between the individual, society and nature. While there are differences in the way they formulate questions, the critical theorists believe that through an examination of contemporary social and political issues they could contribute to a critique of ideology and to the development of a non-authoritarian and non-bureaucratic politics. (Held 1997: 16)

The chapter will also introduce how we can understand the ‘everyday computational' of the digital economy, intended as a critical introduction to the complex field of digital culture and technology. One of these issues will be the move from the mass culture of the ‘Culture Industry' to digital culture and the computational, conceptualized as what we might call the ‘Computal Industries'.

The key is to recognize and understand the profound changes that have taken place in national economies around the globe, particularly those in the over-developed nations. They have become part of tighter global markets, managed through incredibly fast digital networks that can organize and enable the management of complex processes distributed around the world. There is an increasing reliance on discrete computational logics and capacities to manage the production process. And, of course, these logistics also involve new tools for the management of consumption through the increasing computational tracking and surveillance of customer behaviour which can then be subject to nudges and behavioural manipulation. All of this is facilitated through computational abstraction and management dashboards that enable high-level control over almost all aspects of production, distribution and consumption.There has also been a corresponding growth in the management of risk, giving rise to gigantic computational financial markets together with the compression of time, which enables productive shifts through examples such as just-in-time manufacturing, personalized and highly customizable processes.

For sociology, political science or other social sciences to develop an approach to the digital would require that in addition to a focus on questions relating to the structure of the industry, ownership and social patterns, one should also connect material questions of intellectual property rights, innovation and commons-based production in the digital code itself. By learning how to read and decode the structures embedded within software, we can develop understanding of the dark arts of computer programmers and hackers, and connect them more clearly to the way in which technology enables particular digital practices. Indeed, without an understanding of the structure of code, many features of our contemporary situation are impossible to explain or understand. We must, therefore, seek to open up the black box of digital technologies to critique.

The original critical theorists recognized the growing importance of culture for understanding capitalism; indeed, they correctly identified the importance of the cultural industry in the manufacture of minds and cultural products for a growing consumption-led economic system. They also attempted to think through the questions raised by monopoly capitalism and its implications for both a theory and praxis related to critical thought. In many ways, their thought is deeply engaged with many of the problems we face today and it is crucial that a re-articulated critical theory is available for thought today.