During the 1970s, an alternative approach to the study of mass media surfaced called the "critical paradigm." Critical paradigm or theory is historically related with three leading critical theorists of the original Frankfurt School of thought., Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. Horkheimer, one of the founders of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory, defines the theory as the one which seeks human emancipation to liberate human being from the circumstances that enslave them. Many critical tradition scholars dismissed totally any empirical communication research as they believed that media were ideological agencies that played a central role influencing the thoughts and perceptions of the working class people. Scholars argued that research studies in empirical tradition were theoretically limited and therefore useless. Thus, giving birth to a new approach known as the critical paradigm. Critical theorists envisaged the mass media as repressive agents of deception, whose role is to compensate people for the lack of freedom in their own lives through distracting entertainment and messages which condition them to accept the status quo. According to this perspective, therefore the media are once again regarded as powerful influences because even audiences selectively in content consumption and discussion of media content with others cannot totally preclude the ideological impact of the media upon individuals. Having said that, critical theory or paradigm does not promulgate the audiences or media users are passive as the Frankfurt school of thought does. The scholars of critical theory consider the audiences as active enough to think on their own, but at the same time passive enough to have an ideological impact of media on themselves. Critical paradigm was proposed in the era of radio and television domination, when the flow of the media messages and its impact was uni-dimensional to say the least. Cut to the 21st century, the digital