Resources for Teachers - Diversity in Media

First Person

In this lesson students consider diversity representation in video games by identifying examples of diversity in the games they play, comparing their findings to statistics on diversity in the Canadian population.

Who's Telling My Story?

In this lesson students learn about the history of blackface and other examples of majority-group actors playing minority-group characters such as White actors playing Asian and Aboriginal characters and non-disabled actors playing disabled characters.

Bias in News Sources

In this lesson students consider the meaning of the words “bias” and “prejudice” and consider how bias may be found even at the level of individual words due to connotation.

Screen Stigma: Looking at mental illness in popular media

Students begin by viewing a slideshow that explores common stereotypes of mental illness and mental illness treatment in media. They read a prepared analysis of the portrayal of mental illness in a TV show popular with teens, then in a small group analyze another text of their choice. Finally, students create an annotated version of a scene or excerpt from a text in which they analyze and evaluate its portrayal of mental illness.

That's Not Me: Diversity and Media

The That’s Not Me tutorial focuses on the role that mainstream media play in shaping our perceptions about diversity. The tutorial explores what we see – and what we don’t see – on TV and in newspapers, video games, movies, the internet and other media. The tutorial looks at common trends in media portrayals of diversity and examines the reasons behind these trends; explores some of the factors behind media bias when covering diversity issues; and talks about the importance of media education to talking about diversity issues and empowering young people to take action.