 Although Suzuki had received her master's degree in mass communications from Stanford University in 1966, she soon became critical of the mass communications research approach, especially its inherent view of people as 'passive receivers' or consumers of information.She instead began to develop a citizen-centered approach.Through her work with the Forum for Citizen's Television and Media (FCT), which she co-founded in 1977, she focused on informed criticism of commercial television programming, especially for children, as well as of gender stereotypes and other misconceptions and biases found in the mainstream Japanese media.