Talking to your kids about sexting
Sexting is most likely to have negative consequences when the person sending the sext has been pressured into doing it.
Dinner table talk about passwords
In my previous post I briefly mentioned the issue of passwords. The topic of passwords may not be as top-of-mind as sexting or bullying, but it’s important, and it definitely deserves some attention at home. Consider this the next topic for your dinnertime conversation.
Talking to your kids about pornography
It is natural for adolescents to be curious about sex: MediaSmarts’ research suggests that one in six grade 7- 11 students use the Internet to look for information about sexual health. Twenty percent of kids that age look for pornography online, but a third see it without looking for it — and close to half take steps to keep from seeing it.
How Young Canadians Get Their Online Media
TV, music and movies have been a central part of young people’s lives for generations, and the Internet has only intensified that by delivering all of those directly to our homes – legally and illegally.
Masculinity and Sports Media
Sports media also contributes to the construction of masculinity in contemporary society.
Tweets from Birmingham jail
Malcolm Gladwell's recent New Yorker article “Small Change” has set the blogosphere buzzing with its strongly stated argument that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will not usher in a new age of social activism, as some digital evangelists have proposed, but that they and the relationships they foster are actually detrimental to real social change. As Gladwell puts it, "The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo."
A laptop in every pot
The old saying that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer applies to cyberspace, too: these maps comparing router and population density show that the developing world has a long way to go to catch up to North America, Western Europe and Japan when it comes to getting online. The One Laptop Per Child project aims to change all that, designing, constructing and distributing Internet-ready laptops to children in developing countries.
Media and morality
The new movie Zero Dark Thirty, which tells the story of the tracking and eventual killing of Osama Bin Laden, has received several Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), but it's attracting another kind of attention as well: several writers, including Jane Meyer at The New Yorker and Peter Maass at The Atlantic, have accused it of condoning or even glorifying the use of torture by US intelligence agencies.
Where no Eagles soar
This winter the Olympics return to Canada for the first time since the Calgary games of 1988. For many people, the most vivid memories of that Olympiad are the colourful stories of some of the less accomplished athletes, such as British ski jumper Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards and the members of the Jamaican bobsled team. It's unlikely, though, that there will be any charming underdogs in this year's Olympiad, as the games become more and more the province of professionals. As audiences and advertising revenues drop, however, will the professionalization of the Games spell their downfall?
Computers, metaphors of materiality, and everyday life
A recent case involving lawmakers who want to access data on the computer of a woman accused of engaging in a mortgage scam in Colorado has opened up a virtual Pandora’s box of legal questions: American courts are currently struggling with whether or not suspects can be forced to show authorities how to access their encrypted information and the repercussions of their ruling could affect Canadian law as well.