5. Media contain ideological and value messages. A media literate person is always aware that media texts carry values and have ideological implications. (Ideology in this sense means the set of assumptions for what we think is normal.) A media literate person does not complain that something is biased; he or she searches out the bias, the assumptions, the values in everything that's made. It's all made by people after all, who interpret the world according to their own values and assumptions. Most often, the media affirm the world as it is, the status quo, the received wisdom, whatever is thought of by the media makers as the consensus. And they become reinforcers of that status quo as a result. Because media mostly reinforce the status quo, the fact that they carry values may seem almost invisible, or ordinary, or not worth noting. It becomes clearer that they carry those values when you disagree with them.
6. Media have social and political implications. Because media construct reality, under economic terms that shape their messages, and powerfully transmit values, they have important social and political effects on our lives together in society and as members of the public.
