Ottawa, March 8, 2005 – The Media Awareness Network (MNet) today recognized and thanked CHUM Limited for its $250,000 support of MNet. This support will contribute to MNet’s Literacies for the 21st Century policy initiative and program. Comments were made at a joint MNet and CHUM luncheon event in Ottawa to launch the initiative.
1. identify the different genres of media production; i.e., character development, film pre-visualization, product or service promotion, animation and interactive gaming
1.1 identify the elements of a written composition in each genre; e.g., written description, plot summary, concept development, structure, logic and sequence development
1.2 compare the writing requirements for each genre of media production; e.g., narrative point of view, fact, fiction
One of the reasons why teens turn to shortcuts, such as judging a claim based on the reliability or apparent authenticity of the person making it, or turning to peers and influencers over trusted expert sources, is that they simply encounter too much information to deal with. To overcome this, we need to learn information sorting: how to quickly tell whether or not a source is even worth our attention before considering it.
It's been a rough couple of months for a brat. Or rather for Bratz – the giant-headed, almond-eyed, scantily dressed dolls that have been giving Barbie a scare for the last few years. One of the toy success stories of the last decade, the Bratz juggernaut now shows signs of slowing down: first, a $100 million judgment against the dolls' manufacturer, MGA Entertainment, which ruled that the original designer first drew them while still under contract at Mattel; then a successful campaign by parents to keep Bratz books out of the Scholastic catalogue, which places books in thousands of schools across North America; and, most painfully, reports that stores have cut shelf space for Bratz by as much as 50 per cent.
If you’re worried that a film might not be suitable for your kids, preview it yourself. Talk to other parents who’ve seen it or check out the reviews by parents and kids at Common Sense Media. You can also use our tip sheet Understanding the Rating Systems to help understand what the ratings on a movie really say about it.
Parents and teachers need evidence-based strategies to confront culture of non-consensual sharing
Today's definition of literacy is more than reading and writing. In order to be functionally literate in our media-saturated world, children and young people—in fact, all of us—have to be able to read the messages that daily inform us, entertain us and sell to us. Media literacy education, therefore, must begin long before children become print literate to prepare them to critically engage with the media they consume.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Screen-Free Week (May 4th to 10th), and it’s striking to consider just how our relationship with screen media has changed in that time.
One of the biggest changes in our understanding of bullying has been an increased awareness of the important role witnesses play in any bullying situation. This has been partially because of cyberbullying, which makes it possible for witnesses to be invisible, to join in anonymously, to revictimize a target by forwarding bullying material – or to intervene, to offer support to the target and to bear witness to what they have seen. Just as we're coming to realize how important witnesses to bullying are, though, we need to be careful to recognize how complex their role is.