Students are bombarded daily with print, visual, and digital media. Whether it is on a billboard, listening to an iPod on the way to school, or text messaging a friend during class, youth culture is hardwired into these multiple forms of communication technologies. Nonetheless, the daily life and respective experiences of students are often still subordinated to the school curriculum. Our social action curriculum project, which targeted "at risk" youth at a vocational high school in the Ottawa region, attempted to disrupt this by integrating emergent digital technologies and differentiated instructional strategies into five Grade 10 courses over a span of two years. Devising what we call a "socio-culturally responsive media studies curriculum," we addressed the following Ontario Character Development Initiatives: (1) Academic achievement; (2) Character development; (3) Citizenship development; and (4) Respect for diversity. But, what happens when social action researchers and teachers seek to institutionalize such taken-for-granted use of digital media within their design and implementation of the provincial curriculum and these character development initiatives? In response to this question, this paper will examine the curriculum we implemented with teachers and students in order to negotiate the four character development initiatives. As well, we examine how our curriculum research and the implemented program specifically created spaces for marginalized voices to be heard, and multiple literacies to flourish. (Contains 5 footnotes.)