Understanding media literacy, how consumers process and think about the media they consume, can help you with your PR and marketing.
I recently taught my freshman Media and You students at East Tennessee State University about the conscious model vs. unconscious model, as well as meaning matching vs. meaning construction.
These are two key concepts in media literacy.
Here’s how they apply to how you should think about what you’re communicating about your business and its offerings.
The Conscious Model vs. Unconscious Model
If you ask any customer why they chose your product over a competitor’s, more often than not their answer will sound confident, specific and rational-sounding.
But did you know most of the time they’re only guessing?
Media researchers have spent decades studying how people actually process messages, and the findings are fascinating.
And even a little unsettling.
Conscious Consumer Choosing: The Exception?
Believe it or not, of the two competing models of how people take in information, conscious decision-making is the exception more often than the rule.
The conscious model assumes people deliberately decide what to watch, read, click or buy. They weigh options. They compare. They choose.
In the unconscious model, the consumer’s automatic mental shortcuts are making most of those calls, often before the person is even aware a decision has been made.
The brain built these shortcuts over years of repetition and runs them on autopilot because it’s a more efficient way to process information.
Conscious thought is more time-consuming. The brain saves it for things that are deemed more important.
In other words, it’s less likely consumers are consciously reasoning their way through every decision after consuming your PR and marketing messages. Most have put a good chunk of that decision-making on autopilot, the unconscious model.
Every “why did you buy from us” survey response, every focus-group answer, and every exit interview are still worth collecting. But it’s also, often, a person reconstructing a rational story for a decision their brain already made on autopilot.
That’s just how cognition works. It doesn’t mean you should stop listening to customers. It means you should treat what they tell you as the story they’ve built, not necessarily the full mechanism behind the choice.
Meaning Matching vs. Meaning Construction
There’s a second concept from my class worth stealing for your own work: the difference between meaning matching and meaning construction.
Meaning matching is fast and cheap. Someone sees your logo, recognizes it and recalls whatever stock definition they already have stored.
“That’s the plumbing company.” “That’s the overpriced one.” “That’s the one my neighbor used.”
No new thinking happens. The brain just retrieves a label.
Meaning construction is slower and rarer. It’s when someone actually interprets a message by analyzing it, comparing it to something else, or forming a new impression.
This is where an opinion actually gets formed or changed.
Recognizable is not the same as persuasive. It just means you didn’t require any effort from your audience, which also means you probably didn’t move anything, either.
3 Messaging Strategies
Here’s the honest answer: awareness alone helps, but it’s not the whole toolkit.
Since most processing happens on autopilot, low-friction messaging travels further than dense messaging. With that understanding, here are three ways to work with that system instead of against it:
- Keep your core idea simple enough that it doesn’t tax working memory. A message that asks a lot of your audience gets remembered less, not more.
- Lead with the one fact you most need remembered, not every fact you have. Central information sticks. Tangential information, even when interesting, crowds it out.
- Pair your key message with an emotional hook. Information tied to an emotional cue is retained better than the same information delivered flat, and it’s more likely to survive the autopilot filter in the first place.
None of that means abandoning the conscious model. Some decisions (a major purchase, a considered vendor choice) genuinely get weighed deliberately, and clear, rational information matters there too.
What that means is you shouldn’t assume every piece of content is being consciously evaluated just because you wrote it that way.
The 3 Big Takeaways
- Conscious decision-making happens, but the unconscious model, which works on automatic mental shortcuts, does most of the work. Design your messaging assuming it won’t get a careful, deliberate read.
- Meaning matching (recognition) and meaning construction (interpretation) are different jobs. Know which one a piece of content is doing before you write it.
- To reach the unconscious system: simplify the core message, lead with the one fact that matters most, and pair it with an emotional cue. That’s not a hunch. It’s what the retention research actually shows.
What’s one piece of your messaging you’d rewrite with this in mind? Do share!
Stay authentic — and remember most of your audience isn’t deciding. They’re simply recognizing.
Jeffery E. Pizzino, APR (seen here in a vintage photo circa 1983 serendipitously doing a Clash impersonation in a since-forgotten location) is a spin-free public relations pro who is passionate about telling the why of your story with clarity, impact and authenticity. He began his PR career in 1987 at Ketchum Public Relations in New York City but has spent the majority of his career as a solopreneur. He’s the Chief Authentic Officer of the Johnson City, TN-based public relations firm, AuthenticityPR. He also functions as the fractional CCO for his clients.
Jeff has an MBA in Management from Western International University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications — with an emphasis in PR — from Brigham Young University (rise and shout!). He’s also accredited in public relations (APR) and an adjunct media and communication faculty at East Tennessee State University. This Milwaukee, Wisconsin native holds an Italian citizenship and plans to live and work there someday. Jeff and his storyteller wife Leticia have four children and four grandchildren. In his extremely limited nonwork hours, he studies Italiano, practices guitar, writes songs, gardens, works out, disc golfs, reads, listens to New Wave music, serves as an assistant communication director in his church, watches BYU football, enjoys watching the original Mission Impossible TV series, and plays board games (mostly Dominion and Seven Wonders). No, this guy’s never bored and looking for something to do. Email Jeff.
