In this article, the author outlines two general research approaches, within the education world, to these mass-mediated formations: "Deference" and "Denial." Researchers who recognize the social practices that give local meaning to mass media formations and ways of speaking do not attempt to recontextualize youth media in their own social formations (of "critical" academia or "best practices" recommendations for teachers, for example). Rather, they enter into those words and worlds--the ambiguity of verbs such as "to be real," or the situated practices surrounding youth cultural text--through ethnographic study and/or long-term, intense involvement. These researchers investigate the "deference" involved in fully embracing mass-mediated youth cultural practices in situ, themselves deferring to initially inscrutable youth behaviors and explanations. Another group of research on mass-mediated youth literacies takes a different approach. Rather than investigating the complex of situated practices involved in youth cultural formations, this research pulls signs of youth culture from the context of youth practices to make links to more mainstream, institutionalized educational goals. The author has labeled this the "denial" approach--suggesting that these applications may often be in "denial" of the necessity of the complex web of practices that characterize youth media consumption. After exemplifying work within "deference" and "denial" approaches (and some researchers engage in both types of work), the author argues for the development of a new approach to mass media and schooling research that facilitates research into and talk across "repertoires of deference." A "repertoire" approach accounts for the reality that all mass-mediated signs are only humanly meaningful when embedded in social practices.