Media are constrained by forms, codes and conventions. Media present ideologies and values messages. Going beyond simple camera techniques and stereotype-identification, this profound concept trees media literate individuals to identify their own set of values and recognize when their inner voice is being violated by an outer influence. Media are businesses with corporate interests and commercial implications. Even public television and public radio are subject to corporate pressures.
Audiences negotiate meaning.
The most famous example of this key concept is Norman Lear's All in the Family, a program designed to illustrate the absurdity of bigotry and narrow minded prejudice. While the majority of the viewing audience negotiated the meaning of Archie Bunker, as a buffoon, there also developed audiences, in pockets of our country, who chose to see him as a hero and were pleased to have their points of view represented by him. The United States remains the only major industrialized nation to disregard the educational mandates of comprehensive media education. It is hoped that the pilot site will demonstrate a cost effective and practical model of school reform, and will assist in leading the nation in the implementation of comprehensive media education and media literacy. In short, media literacy is best defined as the inclusive literacy for people on the edge of the twenty-first century.