I recognized the construction techniques, and I was using them. Later, my awareness of media constructions expanded to include looking critically at movies and television shows and especially at political advertisements. Media literacy, in its simplest terms, is viewing or reading any media message, even newspaper and magazine articles, critically. All media messages are created by someone for a specific purpose and target a specific audience or audiences. All media messages are constructions and the way they are constructed includes both words, images, and sounds.
People interpret media messages differently, based on their own experiences and even prejudices.
Each media message represents someone's social reality. In other words, just because something is printed and is real does not make it true . If someone is trying to influence you to do something, vote a certain way or believe a specific thing, then you need to arm yourself against those influences. To just accept everything you see and read and hear as truth is to allow yourself to be manipulated. Just because someone tells you to buy a specific kind of toothpaste doesn't mean you should.