Five core principles underlie every media message. You can use these to evaluate the truth, accuracy and relevance of any information you’re reading, seeing or hearing.
- Messages are constructions. Someone thinks long and hard about any print or electronic message that is produced: What it will look like; what it will say; and what it will do. Ask: What’s behind the information?
- Messages represent social reality. Each message presents a picture of “a” world — that world may or may not match the world in which you live. Ask: What world is your information depicting?
- Messages have economic, social, political, historic and aesthetic purposes. There is a major reason for the message: to sell a product, to persuade someone, to establish information or to entertain. Many messages have more than one purpose. Ask: What are the purposes of this information?
- Different people respond differently depending on their attitudes, life experiences, needs, knowledge and more. Ask: How am I responding to this information?
- Messages have unique forms, language, symbols and other features. The type of message determines the form, language, symbols and images that are used in it. For example, a brochure for a historic site uses different forms than a television commercial for toothpaste. Ask: What are the forms this information uses?
Taken from Understanding Media: Process and Principles, a self-directed course by Sherrye Dee Garrett and Stephanie Johnson at Poynter NewsU.
