Laws, Rules and Personal Morality
It’s important to make young people aware of the laws that apply to what they do online, as well as to have household rules that cover online behaviour.
It’s important to make young people aware of the laws that apply to what they do online, as well as to have household rules that cover online behaviour.
As we grow, we pass through distinct stages of moral development in which our ethical thinking is based on different principles: the desire to avoid punishment (Stage I) and the desire to obtain rewards (Stage II), which are then followed by a wish to fit in and conform in order please others (Stage III) and a duty to follow rules, laws and social codes (Stage IV). Last comes the sense of participating in a social contract (Stage V) and, finally, a morality that looks to universal ethical principles of justice and the equality and dignity of all people (Stage VI).
Despite all of the concerns about what youth are doing with digital media, MediaSmarts’ study Young Canadians in a Wireless World (YCWW) has found that not only are most kids not getting in trouble online, they’re often being actively kind and thoughtful towards people they know.
Empathy is at the heart of ethics. In order to develop a sense of right and wrong that goes past just being afraid of punishment or hoping for a reward, we have to be able to put ourselves in another person’s shoes.
In this lesson, students explore the gratuitous use of violence in sports.
In this lesson students develop an awareness of the ways in which public perceptions regarding young people have been affected by media portrayals of youth violence and youth crime.
In this lesson, students consider the importance of the written and unwritten rules that make it possible to learn and play together, online and offline.
In this lesson, students become aware of the types and amounts of violence in children's programming, and how media violence influences young viewers.
In this lesson students look at how elections are media events.
When discussing media representation of various groups, especially those we consider marginalized, stereotypes are often a primary concern. But sometimes, breaking a stereotype doesn’t go quite far enough, and the issue can be a little more complicated than merely determining whether or not a character is represented in a positive or negative way. The section that follows explores different approaches to queer content by analyzing various ways that popular media have used characterized LGBTQ people.