Popular culture, news media, and the way we consume violence on social media all play significant roles in shaping and reinforcing narratives of violence against women and diverse communities.
Since before Canada became a Confederation, racially and culturally diverse groups have been creating their own media: the first issue of the Provincial Freeman, which was a weekly newspaper edited and published by Black Canadians in the Province of Canada West (now Ontario), was first published on March 24, 1853.
That Indigenous women are likely to be victims of violence is not news: Indigenous women aged 25 to 44 are five times more likely to suffer a violent death than other women in Canada.
Indigenous media has a long history in Canada. While the earliest newspapers aimed at Indigenous readers were published by settlers, there have been Indigenous-run papers since Ojibwa chief, doctor and publisher Peter Edmund Jones, also called Kahkewaquonaby, launched The Indian in Hagersville, Ontario, in 1885. This tradition has continued with papers such as Wawatay News, based in northern Ontario and Edmonton’s Windspeaker.[1]
The Internet offers young people important opportunities to socialize with their friends and families as well as to find people who share common interests and communities that can provide emotional support. It is also inevitable that at an age where young people are starting to explore their sexuality offline, they will do so online in these interactive environments as well.
In grades 2-3, students are still not yet able to think critically about technology, accepting online environments and activities at face value. However, their growing independence means they are looking for more information online, and they are starting to integrate computers and the Internet into their daily lives.
Questions about media violence have populated the headlines for almost as long as mass media has existed. Every few years, there’s a new line up of suspects: music, social media platforms, video games, television shows and movies.
Contrary to stereotypes, youth do care about their privacy.
Media education can help young people put current images and messages about Indigenous people into perspective by helping them understand how the media work, why stereotyping exists, how decisions are made and why “it matters who makes it.” Media education is not about learning the right answers; it’s about consuming media images with an active, critical mind and asking the right questions.
Parents of young children have an important role to play in protecting their kids from invasive marketing and in educating them about advertising from an early age.