Reading Media

It is time for Americans to learn how to read media.

“Reading Media” certainly means reading newspapers, magazines and books – and now Websites – and watching television and movies, and listening to radio.

But “Reading Media” also means understanding a second level of whatever you are looking at or listening to that is always there. At that level are the reasons that someone decided to write the story, or the sitcom, or the movie, or the book, or the commercial.

Those reasons are all about you. Media professionals can “read” you like a book. They know what pushes your buttons, what pulls your triggers. They go to journalism and media schools to learn how to read you, using a system of tools and definitions that I call a Toolbox. Then they become professionals in one of the three media production industries: information, entertainment, and persuasion.

Unfortunately, the Toolbox isn’t part of regular education in the United States. If it was, the general public would understand why news is news. People would understand the difference between news and entertainment (a difference that many media pros are working very hard to blur these days). And they would understand the reactions they have to things they see in media, and that understanding is very important. In everything from beer commercials to political programming, the media uses the Toolbox to manipulate people, to create persuasion that leads to choices.

People know they are feeling something when they see this content: happiness, anger, satisfaction, disgust, agreement, disagreement, connection, alienation. But they may not understand the feeling, where it comes from. Seinfeld mugs an old lady just to get a loaf of rye bread, and people laugh and laugh.

Why do people laugh at a mugging? The answer is in the Toolbox. When people use the Toolbox to read media, they become more informed consumers, whether the product is information, entertainment or persuasion. Informed consumers have the best chance to make choices they will feel good about. When the media starts to realize that the consumers know what is going on, it will move the media-public relationship toward a more honest balance. To change the media, change the audience.