Outline the key features of the Frankfurt School in relation to media theory.

The Frankfurt School was fundamental in the introduction of a structured and intelligible theory of the media within their own historical context, and the development of contemporary theory having since emerged has been heavily influenced by them. The main themes they deal with are; notions of culture (and mass culture), technology and its influence on the production of contemporary culture, post modernism and consumer society. The predominant thinkers associated with the school draw upon Marxist teachings but seek to extend and update them into a modern context as they recognised the flaws of Marxism evident in the rise of fascism in the 1920s-1940s….(short extract)