The political approach was used to ensure that the ideas and concepts of the dominant class were being reproducing within society and it was important that these were thought to be the accepted norms and expected culture from society (Adorno et al., 1975). The political approach stems from Marxist ideas, as the media was growing during the capitalist era, producing, trading and consuming for a profit was important, culture was being commoidified and sold for a profit (Devereux, 2007). Cultural producers believed themselves to be important in creating the media but according to Marxist theories they were just employees of the media (Kerr, 2014). .
The first key concept of the critical thinkers' approach I am going to focus on is the way in which the media is a form of mass deception (Kerr, 2014). Adorno and Horkheimer were carrying out their research on the culture industry during World War II, in which they were held captive (Kellner, 1975). During this time the there was a predominant increase in the mass media, propaganda was widely used in the media in order to retain Nazi views dominant in the media (Kerr, 2014). This idea was closely linked to ideas in Marxism, society having a dichotomous class system, with more power that was dominant over another. Due to this it was the dominant class who had control over all media, therefore this lead to the standardization of content being produced across all of the media. Adorno and Horkheimer (1944) believe that "the culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises ", this reflects the political approach, and the media is not concerned enough with the audiences needs and wants. Critical/Political theory condemned entertainment in the media, it was seen as a form of corruption that may divert the, Adorno et al., (1975) thinks that the culture industry is "dehumanizing " the audience, he believes that it was invented in this way to disable any active thinking or use of imagination by the audience, he thought very negatively of this, he believed the audience needed to be able to express themselves individually.
