Covering controversy

The hottest media story in the past week has been the instantly infamous New Yorker cover portraying Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as terrorists. Though the Obama campaign has been measured in its response, media outlets – and particularly bloggers – have been vocal in their disapproval. Some have suggested that the cover crosses the line from satire into hate speech, while others accuse TheNew Yorker of giving ‘aid and comfort to the enemy' by visually depicting the smears and misconceptions that have been aimed at the candidate.

Journalism & News, Marketing & Consumerism, Media Production, Stereotyping

Making Your Voice Heard: A Media Toolkit for Youth

Making Your Voice Heard: A Media Toolkit for Youth is designed to help young people understand how the news industry works, why youth stereotyping happens and how they can access media to get positive youth voices and stories heard.

Digital Citizenship, Diversity in Media, Journalism & News, Media Production, Resources, Social Networking

Suffragettes and Iron Ladies - Lesson

This lesson considers how the media portrays women in politics. Students explore capsule biographies of female political leaders, from ancient times to current events – crafted from snippets of media coverage such as newspapers, magazines, TV news and encyclopedias – to understand bias in how female politicians are portrayed.

Gender Representation, Journalism & News, Stereotyping

Reality Check: The Game

On the internet, it can be hard to tell what’s true and what’s false—but we have to make a lot of decisions based on how reliable we think things are. In Reality Check, you’ll learn how to find clues like finding where a story originally came from and comparing it to other sources, as well as how to use tools like fact-checking sites and reverse image searches.

Authenticating Information, Internet & Mobile, Journalism & News

Talking to kids about hate in media

Along with images of natural disasters and violence, one all-too-common news item that can be distressing to kids is reports of hate crimes. Seeing or hearing about hate-motivated assaults and vandalism of homes, cemeteries and places of worship in media, can lead to fear and anxiety in young people, especially if they belong to a vulnerable group. In many cases, the effect will be worse because news isn't the only place Canadian kids see hate and racism: almost half see hateful content online at least once a month, and one in six sees it every day.

Internet & Mobile, Journalism & News, Online Hate, Television

Public or private? Facebook and the Stefanie Rengel case

With the tremendous success and spread of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, along with home-broadcasting sites such as YouTube and Flickr, many people have become concerned about what effect they will have on our attitudes towards privacy. Now a new question has arisen: whether Facebook postings violate the Youth Criminal Justice Act if they identify suspects or victims covered under the act.

Internet & Mobile, Journalism & News, Privacy

The Battle for Community TV

If asked to think about community television (or public-access television, as a similar institution is called in the US) most people would probably conjure up the movie Wayne's World or its real-life analogue, The Tom Green Show: TV made by people who would, under normal circumstances, never appear on TV, shot in someone's basement or living room. Or perhaps they'd think of earnest, low-budget shows that showcase community events that wouldn't otherwise be televised, such as ethnic festivals or the Canadian Improv Games.

Events, Journalism & News, Television

Lisa for President: Women, politics and the media

The last year has been an unusually busy one for watchers of gender representation in the news media, with not one but two high-profile women involved in the U.S. presidential race. The way in which these two politicians were covered provides a view of how gender in politics is portrayed in the media, and how this can help to explain just how unusual those two women are.

Human Rights, Journalism & News, Resources, Stereotyping

From stovepipe hats to Spider-Man: The U.S. presidential inauguration as a media event

As media outlets continue to close and advertising budgets shrink, the once-mighty Super Bowl is receiving much less buzz than usual. A number of major advertisers, such as Federal Express and troubled automaker General Motors, have decided not to run Super Bowl ads at all this year. Another January event, though, is attracting a surprising amount of media attention: the U.S. presidential inauguration.

Environment, Events, Journalism & News