My Voice is Louder Than Hate

My Voice is Louder Than Hate, MediaSmarts’ latest resource, uses digital storytelling and meme making tools to encourage youth to push back when they encounter hate online.

Printable activities for younger children

These printable activity sheets introduce basic media literacy skills and concepts and are suitable for use in homes, schools and libraries. They can be completed independently, but children will learn more if you discuss the activities with them. Younger children may need help reading the instructions and completing some activities.

What do teens really think about screen time?

Screen time is a common topic for parents to try and manage today. Are we allowing too much? How do we make it safe? We will ask our friends and fellow parents for their thoughts or advice or learn tips from resources (like MediaSmarts!) to help us navigate this new aspect of parenting. When I was my kids’ age, we were just loading Netscape 2.0 onto our computers, and we’d check our ICQ messages before putting in a VHS to watch a movie or playing some Super Mario RPG.  The online world is so different now.

Buying a smartphone for teens

It’s time to buy a smartphone for my youngest (who is only a few months away from being 14 years old). While we know there are considerations and conversations needed around the use of phones, safety, apps, privacy and other responsibilities when owning a phone, we also know the time is right.

Break the Fake: Spotting hate propaganda

What do we mean by propaganda?

• Propaganda tries to get you to believe in an idea or to feel a certain way.
• Propaganda convinces you by provoking your emotions instead of making a logical argument.

Not all propaganda is bad! It can inspire positive emotions like love, pride and empathy. It can persuade us to do things like putting on seatbelts or brushing our teeth.

Hate propaganda is different: it tries to make us fear and distrust another group of people.

Break the Fake: Critical thinking vs. disinformation

People who share false or misleading information sometimes use the language of critical thinking and media literacy, telling followers to “do your research” and “think critically” in one breath and then to “trust the plan” in the next. So how can we tell if we’re really thinking critically?

Break the Fake: Correcting disinformation

Here are three ways to respond to false info online:

1. Ask a question

If the false info is coming from a friend or a family member, or you’re worried that your reply might help spread the false info, you can just ask a question like “Are you sure that’s true?” or “Is that source reliable?”.  

That nudges them to think more about whether what they're sharing is true, and shows other people that you don't agree with the bad info.

Research has found this works almost as well as correcting or debunking false information!

A parent’s view of Digital Citizen Day and Media Literacy Week

Parents, you may be aware that Media Literacy Week is October 24-28 and Digital Citizen Day is October 26, but we should talk about digital media literacy all year round. We are raising kids who are going to be so much better at using media for (hopefully) good; for their education, careers, community giving and passions. It’s moving quickly and we are trying to keep up.

Reporting Platforms and Changing the Vibe

Written by Dr. Samantha McAleese

Here at MediaSmarts, we’ve just wrapped up another research project called Reporting Platforms: Young Canadians Evaluate Efforts to Counter Disinformation. This project created space for youth from across Canada to examine and assess reporting processes on popular social media apps (like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube). We wanted to learn more about how young people feel about current efforts to counter misinformation and disinformation and what solutions they might have to address this particular online harm. To do this, we facilitated three focus groups with 36 participants ages 16 to 29, talked to them about how often they see misinformation and disinformation online and what they do about it, and asked them to comment on whether they trust platforms to keep them safe and informed while scrolling and sharing.  

AI is a hot topic

Students and educators are already having to deal with artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications on schoolwork, assignments and lessons. When writing an essay, or when completing a school project, generative AI tools like ChatGPT can maybe speed up the results, save time and craft the correct response. Is that a good thing or are we causing more issues for our futures?