Media Portrayals of Persons with Disabilites: Solutions
Media producers have recognized that they must make efforts to better represent persons with disabilities.
Media producers have recognized that they must make efforts to better represent persons with disabilities.
Christian religions form the largest religious group in Canada today, with more than 70 per cent of the population identifying with a Christian denomination. The widespread popularity of Christianity in Canada, however, does not mean that media treatment of Christianity is always accurate or informed.
Our discussion paper Mapping Digital Literacy Policy and Practice in the Canadian Landscape draws on policy and curriculum documents from across the country to synthesize key concepts and best practices in current digital literacy education. The discussion paper was made possible by financial contributions from Google Canada.
Many curricular expectations in B.C. English Language Arts courses relate to media and digital literacy. Media and digital literacy skills and concepts can be found in the Core Competencies of Communication, Thinking and Personal & Social, as well as many of the Big Ideas, Curricular Competencies and specific course content.
Persons with disabilities might best be described, in the media at least, as an invisible minority: though a large segment of the population has a physical or mental disability they have been almost entirely absent from the mass media until recent years. Moreover, when persons with disabilities appear they almost always do so in stereotyped roles.
Part of stereotyping is the attitude that all members of a particular group are the same, or else fall into a very small number of types. This is particularly true in the few cases where persons with a disability appear in media
The Prince Edward Island Mathematics curriculum includes curriculum expectations relating to recognizing and correcting for bias and the portrayal of probability and statistics in media.
In the Prince Edward Island Health Education Framework, media literacy outcomes are included under the broader categories of Self; Safety and Emergency, Nutrition; Healthy Body; Social Relationships and Decisions About Drugs. Prince Edward Island is currently creating a new Health curriculum.
In the working guide Journey On: Working Toward Communication and Information Technology Literacy, media-related outcomes are integrated throughout the curriculum.
According to this document: