In this three-day unit, students assess media coverage of natural disasters and their aftermath. Students explore how sensationalism plays a role in determining what is newsworthy, and how that can distort our perception of issues in developing nations.
Privilege is the relative benefit that a group enjoys as a result of the discrimination or oppression of other groups. When we think about racism and discrimination, we often envision acts of deliberate meanness or quantifiable oppression of a disadvantaged group – hurtful words, tasteless jokes, deliberate exclusion from work or school, acts of violence, and so on – but it can just as easily take the form of privileges given to members of a more advantaged group.
I can look at the media and see people from my group widely represented as heroes, role models, leaders, news anchors, television hosts, and experts.
In this five- or six-day unit, students create a video podcast to present balanced, unbiased perspectives on global development issues.
Much of what we believe about the world comes from the media products we see and hear. This is especially true of places and things we might not have actually experienced, such as developing nations and global development efforts. Beyond Media Messages: Media Portrayal of Global Development looks at how the media influences our views of developing nations and global development efforts, how we can learn to read or view media portrayals critically and how we can become media authors to promote democratic citizenship.
Lessons on Media and Global Development for Grades 7-12
In this four-day unit, students will examine the role of popular culture celebrities in creating awareness of world issues.
Students are introduced to the idea of “privilege” in relation to diversity and how it applies to media. They then look at a checklist of media related privileges to help them understand the concept.
In this lesson students consider the meaning of the words “bias” and “prejudice” and consider how bias may be found even at the level of individual words due to connotation.
In this lesson students learn about the history of blackface and other examples of majority-group actors playing minority-group characters such as White actors playing Asian and Aboriginal characters and non-disabled actors playing disabled characters.