Media texts are built just as surely as buildings and highways are built. The key behind this concept is figuring out who constructed the message, out of what materials and to what effect.

Each form of communication has its own creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close-ups convey intimacy, big headlines signal significance. Understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor of media language helps us to be less susceptible to manipulation.

Audiences play a role in interpreting media messages because each audience member brings to the message a unique set of life experiences. Differences in age, gender, education and cultural upbringing will generate unique interpretations.

Because they are constructed, media messages carry a subtext of who and what is important — at least to the person or people creating the message. The choice of a character’s age, gender or race, the selection of a setting, and the actions within the plot are just some of the ways that values become “embedded” in a television show, a movie or an advertisement.

Much of the world’s media was developed as money-making enterprises. Newspapers and magazines lay out their pages with ads first; the space remaining is devoted to news. Likewise, commercials are part of most television watching. The Internet has become an international platform through which groups or individuals can attempt to persuade.