Taking a critical perspective

The Center for Media Literacy (www.medialit.org) has developed a Media Deconstruction Framework that works with 5 Core Concepts and Key Questions for Consumers. I will be using these concepts and questions to analyze the media text I select for this seminar. Before posting my selected texts, I wanted to review these concepts and questions.

Key Question #1: Who created this message?

Core Concept #1: All media messages are constructed.

Guiding Questions:

• What kind of "text" is it?
• What are the various elements (building blocks) that make up the whole?
• How similar or different is it to others of the same genre?
• Which technologies are used in its creation?
• How would it be different in a different medium?
• What choices were made that might have been made differently?
• How many people did it take to create this message? What are their various jobs?

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.

Guiding Questions:

• What do you notice...(about the way the message is constructed?)

- colors and shapes?

- sound effects? music? silence? dialogue or narration?

- props, sets, clothing?

- movement? composition?

- lighting?

• Where is the camera? What is the viewpoint?
• How is the story told? What are people doing?
• Are there any visual symbols or metaphors?
• What's the emotional appeal? Persuasive devices?
• What makes it seem "real"?

Key Question #3: How might different people understand this message differently?

Core Concept #3: Different people experience the same media message differently.

Guiding Questions:

• Have you ever experienced anything like this?
• How close does it come to what you experienced in real life?
• What did you learn from this media text? What did you learn about yourself from experiencing the media text?
• What did you learn from other people's responses-- and their experiences?
• How many other interpretations could there be? How could we hear about them?
• How can you explain the different responses?
• Are other viewpoints just as valid as mine?

Key Question #4: What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?

Core Concept #4: Media have embedded values and points of view.

Guiding Questions:

• How is the human person characterized? What kinds of behaviors/consequences are depicted?
• What type of person is the reader/watcher/listener invited to identify with?
• What questions come to mind as you watch/read/listen?
• What ideas or values are being "sold" in this message?
• What political or economic ideas are communicated in the message?
• What judgements or statements are made about how we treat other people?
• What is the overall worldview?
• Are any ideas or perspectives left out? How would you find what's missing?

Key Question #5: Why is this message being sent?

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

Guiding Questions:

• Who's in control of the creation and transmission of this message?
• Why are they sending it? How do you know?
• Who are they sending it to? How do you know?
• Who is served by, profits or benefits from the message? The public? Private interests? Individuals? Institutions?
• Who wins? Who loses? Who decides?
• What economic decisions may have influenced the construction or transmission of the message?

Information taken from the Center for Media Literacy: Literacy for the 21st Century/Orientation & Overview.