The key concepts are adapted from those formulated by Barry Duncan, Chair of the Ontario Ministry of Education Media Literacy Project. Media constructed their own reality. 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.