PMS 187 U

Five Key Questions of Media Literacy

2005 / Center for Media Literacy
PMS 187 C

1. Who created this message?

2. What creative techniques are used to
attract my attention?
3. How might different people understand
this message differently than me?
4. What values, lifestyles and points of
view are represented in, or omitted
from, this message?
5. Why is this message being sent?

Five Core Concepts

1. All media messages are constructed.

2. Media messages are constructed using
a creative language with its own rules.
3. Different people experience the same
media message differently.
4. Media have embedded values and
points of view.
5. Most media messages are organized
to gain prot and/or power.
 Key Question #1

Who created this message?

# Core Concept #1
All messages are constructed.

Keyword: To explore the idea of authorship in media literacy is to look deeper than
just knowing whose name is on the cover of a book or all the jobs in the
Authorship credits of a movie. Key Question #1 opens up two fundamental insights
about all media constructedness and choice.

Guiding Questions: The rst is the simple but profound understanding that media texts are not
natural although they look real. Media texts are built just as buildings
What kind of text is it? and highways are put together: a plan is made, the building blocks are
gathered and ordinary people get paid to do various jobs.
What are the various
elements (building Whether we are watching the nightly news, passing a billboard on the street
blocks) that make up the or reading a political campaign yer, the media message we experience was
whole? written by someone (or probably many people), images were captured and
edited, and a creative team with many talents put it all together.
How similar or different
is it to others of the same The second insight is that in this creative process, choices are made. If some
genre?
words are spoken; others are edited out; if one picture is selected, dozens
may have been rejected; if an ending to a story is written one way; other
Which technologies are
endings may not have been explored. However as the audience, we dont get
used in its creation?
to see or hear the words, pictures or endings that were rejected. We only see,
What choices were made
hear or read what was accepted! Nor does anybody ever explain why certain
that might have been
choices were made.
made differently?
The result is that whatever is constructed by just a few people then
How many people did becomes normal for the rest of us. Like the air we breathe, media get taken
it take to create this for granted and their messages can go unquestioned. Media are not real
message? What are their but they affect people in real ways because we take and make meaning for
various jobs? ourselves out of whatever weve been given by those who do the creating.

The success of media texts depends upon their apparent naturalness; we

turn off a TV show that looks fake. But the truth is, its all fake even the
news. That doesnt mean we cant still enjoy a movie or sing along with a
favorite CD or tune in to get the news headlines.

The goal of Key Question #1 is simply to expose the complexities of medias

constructedness and thus create the critical distance we need to be able to
ask other important questions.

2005 Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.org Five Key Questions That Can Change the World 14
 Key Question #2
What creative techniques are used

#
to attract my attention?
Core Concept #2
Media messages are constructed using
a creative language with its own rules.

Keyword: The second Key Question explores the format of a media message and
examines the way a message is constructed, the creative components that are
Format used in putting it together words, music, color, movement, camera angle and
many more. The goal of Key Question #2 is to help students build an internal
checklist that they can apply to any media message anytime.
Guiding Questions:
To build this checklist, we have to, rst, begin to notice how a message
What do you notice is constructed. Through the activities in this unit, students will grow in
(about the way the understanding how all forms of communication whether magazine covers,
message is constructed)? advertisements or horror movies depend on a kind of creative language:
Colors? Shapes? Size? use of color creates different feelings, camera close-ups convey intimacy, scary
Sounds, Words? Silence? music heightens fear.
Props, sets, clothing?
Movement? What do you notice. . .? is one of the most important questions to ask in the
Composition? Lighting? media literacy classroom. And, of course, all answers are acceptable because
different people notice different things. (More about this in Key Question #3.)
Where is the camera?
What is the viewpoint? Because so much of todays communications, including the news, comes to us
visually, it is critical that students learn the basics of visual communication
How is the story told lighting, composition, camera angle, editing, use of props, body language,
visually? What are symbols, etc. and how the use of these techniques inuences the various
people doing? meanings we can take away from a message. Understanding the grammar,
syntax and metaphor system of media, especially visual language, not
Are there any symbols? only helps us to be less susceptible to manipulation but also increases our
Visual metaphors? appreciation and enjoyment of media as a constructed text.
Whats the emotional Just as writing improves not only ones reading skill but also ones appreciation
appeal? Persuasive for good writing, the best way to understand how media are put together is to
devices used?
do just that make a public service announcement, create a website, develop
a marketing campaign for a school activity. The more real world the project
What makes it seem
is, the better. Digital cameras and computer authoring programs provide easy
real?
ways to integrate creative production projects in the classroom from writing
and illustrating their own stories in kindergarten to creating a personal video
documentary in the upper grades.

The four major arts disciplines music, dance, theatre and the visual arts
can also provide a context through which one gains skills of analysis,
interpretation and appreciation along with opportunities to practice
self-expression and creative production.

2005 Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.org Five Key Questions That Can Change the World 28
 Key Question #3
How might different people understand

#
this message differently from me?
Core Concept #3
Different people experience
the same media message differently.

Keyword: How do audiences interact with the media in their lives? Our bodies may not
be moving but in our heads, were constantly trying to connect what were
Audience hearing, seeing or reading with everything else we know. Key Question /
Core Concept #3 incorporates two important ideas: rst, that our differences
inuence our various interpretations of media messages and second, that our
Guiding Questions: similarities create common understandings.

Have you ever When you think about it, no two people see the same movie or hear the same
experienced anything song on the radio; even parents and children do not see the same TV show!
like this in your life? Each audience member brings to each media encounter a unique set of life
experiences (age, gender, education, cultural upbringing, etc.) which, when
How close is this portrayal applied to the text or combined with the text create unique interpretations.
to your experience? A World War II veteran, for example, brings a different set of experiences to a
movie like Saving Private Ryan than a younger person resulting in a different
What did you learn from reaction to the lm as well as, perhaps, greater insight.
this media text?
The line of questions in Key Question #3 turns the tables on the idea of TV
What did you learn about
viewers as just passive couch potatoes. We may not be conscious of it but
yourself from experiencing
each of us, even toddlers, are constantly trying to make sense of what we
the media text?
see, hear or read. The more questions we can ask about what we and others are
What did you learn from
experiencing around us, the more prepared we are to evaluate the message and
other peoples response?
to accept or reject it. And hearing multiple interpretations can build respect for
From their experience of different cultures and appreciation for minority opinions, a critical skill in an
life? increasingly multicultural world.

How many other Our similarities are also important to understanding how media makers
interpretations could there target different segments of the population in order to inuence their opinion
be? How could we hear or, more typically, to sell them something. The concept of target audience
about them? will be explored more deeply in Key Question #5.

Are other viewpoints just Finally, exploring this question reminds teachers that they must not only be
as valid as mine? open to various interpretations among their students but also that students
and teachers dont experience the same media the same way, either! The
How can you explain the goal of media literacy is not to ferret out one right interpretation that
different responses? resides in the head of the teacher but rather to help students think through
the constructedness of a media message and then substantiate their
interpretation with evidence.

2005 Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.org Five Key Questions That Can Change the World 42
 Key Question #4
What lifestyles, values and

#
points of view are represented in,
or omitted from, this message?
Core Concept #4
Media have embedded values and points of view.

Keyword: In looking at the content of a media message, it is important to understand

that there are no value-free media and never will be. All media carry subtle
Content messages about who and what is important.

Because all media messages are constructed, choices have to be made. These
Guiding Questions: choices inevitably reect the values, attitudes and points of view of the ones
doing the constructing. The decision about a characters age, gender or race
What kinds of behaviors / mixed in with the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors that are portrayed, the
consequences are selection of a setting (urban? rural? afuent? poor?), and the actions and
depicted? re-actions in the plot are just some of the ways that values become embedded
in a TV show, a movie or an ad. Even the news has embedded values in the
What type of person is the decisions made about what stories go rst, how long they are, what kinds of
reader / watcher / listener pictures are chosen, and so on.
invited to identify with?
Sometimes, like us, media makers are careless and turn a generalization (a
What questions come to exible observation) into a stereotype (a rigid conclusion). We should expect
mind as you watch / read /
them, however, to strive for fairness and balance between various ideas and
listen?
viewpoints. But we also need to know how to locate alternative sources of both
news and entertainment and to be able to evaluate the alternatives as well for
What ideas or values are
their own embedded values.
being sold to us in this
message?
Whats signicant about Key Question / Core Concept #4 is not that ideas and
What political ideas are values are embedded in media messages but that the values of mainstream
communicated in the media typically reinforce, and therefore, afrm, the existing social system.
message? Economic This explains two of the major complaints many people have about media:
ideas? 1) Less popular or new ideas can have a hard time getting aired, especially if
they challenge long-standing assumptions or commonly-accepted beliefs; 2)
What judgments or Unless challenged, old assumptions can create and perpetuate stereotypes, thus
statements are made further limiting our understanding and appreciation of the world and the many
about how we treat other possibilities of human life.
people?
If we have the skills to question and rationally identify both overt and latent
What is the overall worldview values in a mediated presentation, whether from the news, entertainment or
of the message? now especially from the Internet we are likely to be much more astute in
our decision-making to accept or reject the overall message. Thats vital for
What ideas or perspectives effective citizenship in a democratic society.
are left out? How would
you nd whats missing? Being able to recognize and name missing perspectives is also a critical
skill as we negotiate our way each day of our lives through an increasingly
multicultural world.

2005 Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.org Five Key Questions That Can Change the World 56
 Key Question #5
Why is this message being sent?

# Core Concept #5
Most media messages are organized
to gain prot and/or power.

Keyword: With Key Question #5, we look at the motive or purpose of a media message
and whether or how a message may have been inuenced by money, ego
Purpose or ideology. To respond to a message appropriately, we need to be able to see
beyond the basic content motives of informing,
informing persuading or entertaining.
entertaining

Guiding Questions: Much of the worlds media were developed as money making enterprises
and continue to operate today as commercial businesses. Newspapers and
Whos in control of the magazines lay out their pages with ads rst; the space remaining is devoted to
creation and transmission news. Likewise, commercials are part and parcel of most TV watching. What
of this message? many people do not know is that whats really being sold through commercial
media is not just the advertised products to the audience but also the
Why are they sending it? audience to the advertisers!
How do you know?
The real purpose of the programs on television, or the articles in a magazine,
Who are they sending it is to create an audience (and put them in a receptive mood) so that the network
to? How do you know? or publisher can sell time or space to sponsors to advertise products. We call
this renting eyeballs. Sponsors pay for the time to show a commercial based
Whats being sold in this
on the number of people the network predicts will be watching. And they get a
message? Whats being
refund if the number of actual viewers turns out to be lower than promised.
told?
Exploring how media content, whether TV shows, magazines or Internet sites,
Who prots from this
makes viewers and readers of all ages receptive target audiences for advertisers
message? Who pays for it?
creates some of the most enlightening moments in the media literacy classroom.

Who is served by or Examining the purpose of a message also uncovers issues of ownership and
benets from the message the structure and inuence of media institutions in society. Commercially
the public? sponsored entertainment may be more tolerable to many people than, say,
private interests? a commercial inuence over the news. But with democracy at stake almost
individuals? everywhere around the world, citizens in every country need to be equipped
institutions? with the ability to determine both economic and ideological spin.

What economic decisions But theres more. The issue of message motivation has changed dramatically
may have inuenced since the Internet became an international platform through which groups and
the construction or organizations even individuals have ready access to powerful tools that
transmission of this can persuade others to a particular point of view, whether positive or negative.
message? The Internet provides multiple reasons for all users to be able to recognize
propaganda, interpret rhetorical devices, verify sources and distinguish
legitimate websites from bogus, hate or hoax websites.

2005 Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.org Five Key Questions That Can Change the World 68