Strategies for Engaging with LGBTQ2S+ Representation in Media

Though 2SLGBTQ+ characters, situations and themes are becoming increasingly prevalent in the media, it is sometimes difficult to interpret representations.

Media Portrayals of Persons with Disabilities: Introduction

Persons with disabilities might best be described, in the media at least, as an invisible minority: though a large segment of the population has a physical or mental disability they have been almost entirely absent from the mass media until recent years. Moreover, when persons with disabilities appear they almost always do so in stereotyped roles.

Media Portrayals of Persons with Disabilites: Solutions

Media producers have recognized that they must make efforts to better represent persons with disabilities.

Why is Violent Media so Pervasive?

Representations of violence aren’t new. In fact, violence has been a key part of media since the birth of literature: Ancient Greek poetry and drama often portrayed murder, suicide and self-mutilation; many of Shakespeare’s plays revel in violence, torture, maiming, rape, revenge and psychological terror; and some of the most popular books of the 19th century were “penny dreadfuls” that delivered blood, gore and other shocks to the lowest common denominator.

Concerns about Media Representation of Disability

Media Coverage of Disability Issues: Persons with disabilities receive similar treatment in the news.

Digital Media Literacy Framework - Grades 4-6

Students in the junior grades lack sufficient critical thinking skills to surf the Web alone, but MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wireless World research shows that almost a third never or rarely use the Internet with an adult nearby. This is also an age where kids may be easily influenced by media images and personalities – especially those that appear "cool" or desirable.

Digital Media Literacy Across the Curriculum

There have been four main approaches to integrating digital media literacy into the curriculum.^[1] The first, infusion, makes digital media literacy an integrated part of the inquiry process. The second, integration, makes digital and/or media into its own, separate subject, or gives it a prominent place within an existing subject: media literacy was first brought into the Ontario curriculum in Ontario following this approach in 1989 as one of the four strands of English Language Arts, on a par (at least in theory) with Reading, Writing and Listening.^[2] The third, cross-curricular competencies, identifies digital media literacy competencies as “not something to be added to the literacy curriculum, but a lens for learning that it is an integral part of all classroom practice”^[3]; and the last, dispersion, locates them within various grades and subjects without any overall design.^[4]

Media portrayals of racial and cultural diversity - Overview

Media speaks volumes about what is important in a society. What we see in media can have an impact on how we see other groups and how we see ourselves.

Digital Media Literacy Framework - Grades 7-8

Given their increasing use of the Internet to find information, now is also a good time to introduce strategies for determining authorship and authority of online information so they can recognize good health information, biased or hateful content, and online scams and hoaxes.

At this age media influences on gender norms and body image are becoming more intense. Children need to learn to apply key media literacy concepts to online spaces such as social networks.

Digital Media Literacy Framework - Grades 9-12

Contrary to popular belief, cyberbullying remains a problem in high school. Students in these grades should learn the ways that they can speak out and make a difference, both in cases of individual cyberbullying and in building more tolerant and respectful online spaces.