Managing media with teens
While they’re not going through as much development as tweens, moving to high school at the beginning of this stage – and moving out of it at the end – can be stressful.

While they’re not going through as much development as tweens, moving to high school at the beginning of this stage – and moving out of it at the end – can be stressful.

There are four main strategies to help kids become resilient to online risks. We can:
Curate our kids’ media experiences;
Control who can access our kids and their data;
Co-view media with our kids;
and be our kids’ media Coaches.

Racial stereotypes abound on television, and children's programming is no exception. The turban-wearing bad guy, the brainy Asian, and the Black basketball whiz are just a few of the stereotypes reinforced in children's cartoons, films and TV shows. Spotting these stereotypes is often difficult for children; to them, the tomahawk-wielding Indian or the Asian karate expert is a familiar, easily-understood and often funny character. So how do you help children understand these images for what they are – oversimplified, generalizations?

In the same way that Canadian news reporting does not reflect Canada’s multiculturalism, racial diversity ‘behind the scenes’ of news media is similarly disproportionate. Almost a quarter of the Canadian population identifies as a member of what Statistics Canada refers to as a “visible minority,” and while a 2021 study found a similar rate of representation in newsrooms, eight in ten Canadian newsrooms have no racialized journalists in leadership roles.

First of all, you can’t choose to give up privilege – privilege is by definition an unearned advantage and you cannot choose to not have it. Guilt and shame are not, however, productive ways to deal with this.

Sports media also contributes to the construction of masculinity in contemporary society.

Advertising is a major source of stereotyped representations of masculinity.

Women professionals and athletes continue to be under-represented in news coverage, and are often stereotypically portrayed when they are included.