Resources for Teachers - Diversity in Media

Favourite Sports and Athletes: Introduction to Sports Media - Lesson

This lesson develops a beginning awareness by students of how they feel towards, and respond to, different sports, and how the media represents athletics.

Diversity in Media, Gender Representation, Marketing & Consumerism, Sports, Television, Violence

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.
Diversity in Media, Indigenous People, Media Literacy 101, Persons with Disabilities, 2SLGBTQ+ Representation, Religion, Stereotyping, Visible Minorities

Just a joke? Helping youth respond to casual prejudice

One of the barriers to youth pushing back against prejudice is not wanting to over-react, particularly if they feel their peers were just ‘joking around.’ Humour, however, can often be a cover for intentional bullying and prejudice. In this lesson, students analyze media representations of relational aggression, such as sarcasm and put-down humour, then consider the ways in which digital communication may make it harder to recognize irony or satire and easier to hurt someone’s feelings without knowing it. Students then consider how humour may be used to excuse prejudice and discuss ways of responding to it.

Internet & Mobile, Movies, Online Hate, Stereotyping, Television

Introducing TV Families - Lesson

This lesson encourages children to explore the differences between their real families and TV families by imagining how their own families might be portrayed on a television show.

Diversity in Media, Stereotyping, Television

Framing the News

In this lesson, students consider the idea that a news source can be “accurate but misleading” through the concept of framing. Students learn about the different ways that news stories may be framed, identify examples of framing in a news story, then find and evaluate examples of framing in news stories on a particular issue.

Diversity in Media, Indigenous People, Journalism & News, Persons with Disabilities, Privilege in the Media, 2SLGBTQ+ Representation, Religion, Stereotyping, Visible Minorities