Adorno and Horkheimer had been inspired by the theory of Historical materialism by Karl Marx, which defined history in terms of its materialistic parameters. It states that the nature of the society vastly depends upon the technological advancements and material productivity churned out by its system. It is directly linked with the capitalistic mode of production which signifies market-based channelization of commodities, capturing of the surplus production value by the owning class in the name of accumulation of capital, the means of production governed by privatized ownership, and other procedures developing during the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and then spreading to all parts of the globe (Foley & Duménil, 2008). They were also influenced by Hegel’s dialectical idealism. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Absolute idealism emphasized the sense of identical relationship between the thought of a subject and the object of its thought. It attempts to establish consciousness of one’s ambience in order to properly discern the meaning of the world around it. Both of these theories did not visualize events in isolation but perceived them as chains of linked situations that will beget relevant future circumstances. The other notable influences were instrumental reasoning by Max Weber and the reification of consciousness concept by Georg Lukacs.
In works like ‘Negative Dialectics’ and ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ Adorno and Horkheimer created the notion that political implications exist in the formulation of mass culture and entertainment. This theory denotes that the continual support of the masses is required in interest of the market and every form of modern entertainment is in fact a node of the network termed in unity as culture industry. The main objective of culture industry is to keep the public engrossed in it for the industry’s own benefit and enhancement. The theory puts under the scanner the products of entertainment manufactured by capitalistic societies and views them with critical perceptions.