Media Studies · Media Studies: Reading, Questioning and Creating Media

All Media Are Constructions: Key Concepts and the Media Triangle

1.1 1.2About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can explain what it means that all media are constructions.
I can use the key concepts of media literacy as questions about a media text.
I can use the media triangle (text, audience, production) to analyze how a media text was built for a purpose and an audience.

Words to know

media text
Any product of the media that communicates meaning, such as an ad, video, podcast, web page, news story, meme, game or package.

construction
Something made through choices. In media, someone decides what is included, left out and how it is arranged.

key concepts of media literacy
Eight big ideas Ontario teachers use to question media, starting with "all media are constructions."

media triangle
A thinking tool with three corners: the text, its audience and its production.

deconstruct
To take a media text apart to see how its choices create meaning.

anchor (a meaning)
To fix how an image is read by adding words, such as a caption or headline.

Remember from Grade 9

In Grade 9 you learned that every media text has a form (what kind of text it is), conventions (features audiences expect) and techniques (specific choices such as a close-up or a sudden silence). You asked who an intended audience is, who might be an unintended audience, and who produced and paid for a text. You also wrote analysis sentences with technique + evidence + effect.

Grade 10 Media Studies goes deeper. You will interpret overt and implied messages, evaluate whether texts achieve their purpose, explain why audiences respond differently, question perspectives, bias and power, look behind the scenes of the media industry, and create your own media texts with a clear plan.

Hook: the perfect snow day

Your friend posts a photo: fresh snow on a backyard, a steaming mug of hot chocolate on the porch rail, soft morning light. The caption says Pure peace this morning.

You were there. You know it took 38 tries, the dog knocked the first mug over, a snow shovel was cropped out, and a warm filter was added. Nothing in the photo is fake. But nothing in it is accidental either.

That is the first big idea of media literacy: all media are constructions.

How even a simple post is constructed: capture, select, frame and edit, then anchor meaning with words. The audience sees only step 4.

The key concepts of media literacy

Ontario teachers have used a set of key concepts for media literacy since the Ministry of Education's Media Literacy Resource Guide (1989). Here they are in plain words:

All media are constructions. Someone chose what to include, what to leave out and how to arrange it.
Media construct versions of reality. Much of what we "know" about places and people we have never met comes from media.
Audiences negotiate meaning. Each viewer brings their own experiences, so people can read the same text differently.
Media have commercial implications. Most media are made by businesses that need money, often from advertising.
Media contain ideological and value messages. Texts carry ideas about what is normal, good, beautiful or successful, whether or not they say so out loud.
Media have social and political implications. Media can shape how people vote, shop, treat others and see themselves.
Form and content are closely related. The same story becomes a different story as a meme, a podcast or a documentary.
Each medium has its own aesthetic form. Each medium has its own kinds of beauty and pleasure, like the rhythm of a well-edited video or the layout of a great magazine page.

You don't need to memorize the numbers. You do need to use the ideas as questions.

A tool for asking questions: the media triangle

A simple way to organize your thinking is the media triangle. Its three corners are:

Text: What form is it? What does it show and say? What codes, conventions and techniques does it use? What is left out?
Audience: Who is it for? How do different people read it? What does it want them to think, feel or do?
Production: Who made it, and why? Who paid for it? How was it marketed and distributed? What rules or business pressures shaped it?

The corners connect. A company (production) that wants to sell boots to teens (audience) will choose a short, fast video with music teens like (text).

The media triangle. To understand any media text, ask questions about all three corners: the text itself, its audience, and its production.

Worked example

Let's deconstruct an ad with the triangle

An invented print ad in a snowboarding magazine: a teen stands on a snowy ridge at sunrise, shot from a low angle. Big white words: GO FURTHER. Below, a pair of Glacier Peak winter boots and a small line: Glacier Peak. Built in the cold. Tiny print at the bottom: Model is a professional athlete. Do not attempt. Use the media triangle to analyze it.

Text, what it shows: a confident teen, a dramatic mountain, sunrise light, the product, a two-word slogan. Form: a full-page magazine ad, which can be studied slowly, so the image is detailed.
Text, techniques: the low angle makes the teen look powerful. The sunrise suggests a new beginning and adventure. The slogan GO FURTHER is an imperative (a command) that speaks straight to the reader.
Text, what's left out: cold, fatigue, price, and the fact that most people who buy boots walk to school or the bus stop, not up mountains.
Audience: readers of a snowboarding magazine: mostly teens and young adults who love winter sports, or want to feel like people who do.
Production: a boot company paid for the page. The magazine earns money from ads like this, which may affect how freely it can criticize the company's products. The tiny warning is there to protect the company legally.
Construction: every element was chosen: the model, the location, the time of day, the angle, the words. The ad offers a version of reality where buying these boots makes you adventurous.

Using all three corners shows that the ad is constructed to link the boots with adventure, confidence and toughness for a young, sporty audience, and that a business purpose (selling boots, paying for the magazine) shapes every choice.

Use all three corners

When you analyze any media text, ask at least one question from each corner of the triangle. Students who only analyze the text miss half the story.

Just for fun

Every photo is a construction. That is why your pet's "candid" photo took 37 tries, two helpers and half a bag of treats.

Hands-on activity

Construction detective at home

You need: a phone or camera (or paper and a pencil to sketch), one ordinary object (a mug, a houseplant, a winter mitten), and three media texts from home (for example a cereal box, a flyer from the mail, and the home screen of a streaming app or a website).

Construct a reality. Photograph or sketch your object in three versions: one that makes it look cozy, one that makes it look expensive, and one that makes it look sad or abandoned. Change only the angle, light, background and what is in the frame.
Write down every choice you made for each version.
Triangle check. For each of the three media texts, write one question and answer for each corner: text, audience, production.
Show a family member your three photos without saying which is which. Can they tell which mood you were going for?

What to look for: three clearly different versions of the same object, a list of at least four choices (angle, lighting, background, cropping, props), and triangle notes with a real answer for each corner, such as Production: the cereal company paid for the box design; it wants parents to think the cereal is healthy.

Your turn

What does it mean to say that all media are constructions?

Name the three corners of the media triangle.

In the Glacier Peak ad, what effect does the low camera angle have?

Give two things left out of the Glacier Peak ad, and explain why the producers might leave them out.

Which key concept says that people can read the same text in different ways?

What production question could you ask about a free video game app full of ads?

Your friend's snow-day post said Pure peace this morning. How does the caption change the meaning of the photo?

More practice: warm-up

True or false: a photo that has not been edited is not a construction.

Which corner of the triangle asks Who paid for this?

Name one key concept of media literacy.

What is the form of the Glacier Peak text?

What is a media text?

More practice: on your own

Explain how the key concept media construct versions of reality could apply to a reality TV show.

A teen says, "It's just an ad. It doesn't affect me." Use two key concepts to respond.

How might the production corner change the text of a news story about a company that also owns the news outlet?

Pick a cereal box. Name one image choice and one word choice on it, and explain the version of reality they construct.

Why is the tiny warning Do not attempt in the boot ad?

Challenge

Use all three corners of the media triangle to analyze the home screen of a video streaming app.

Key concept 7 says form and content are closely related. Explain with an example of one story told in two forms.

Some people argue that because audiences negotiate meaning, media can't really influence anyone. Evaluate this argument.

Check your understanding

Quiz

Which statement best expresses the key concept all media are constructions?

The three corners of the media triangle are...

Who paid for this? is a question about...

In the Glacier Peak ad, the slogan GO FURTHER is an imperative. What does that mean?

Which is the best example of the key concept audiences negotiate meaning?

Why did the friend's snow-day photo count as a construction even though nothing was faked?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: the foundations of Grade 10 Media Studies: the idea that all media are constructions, the eight key concepts of media literacy, and the media triangle (text, audience, production). These support expectations 1.1 (how texts suit purposes and audiences) and 1.2 (interpreting messages).

How to help at home:

When an ad comes on, ask one triangle question: "Who paid for this? Who is it for? What did they leave out?"
Share your own experience: "How many tries did that family photo take?"
Look at a cereal box or flyer together and list the choices someone made.

Common difficulties:

Thinking "constructed" means "fake." Stress that true texts are constructed too.
Only describing the text. Push for audience and production questions.
Cynicism. The goal is not to hate all media but to read it with awareness.

Facts used: Ontario's key concepts come from the Ministry of Education's Media Literacy Resource Guide (1989). The Glacier Peak ad and the snow-day post are invented examples.