Marketing violence (and fear of it)
No one knows better than the media industry that children and youth represent a huge market, due to both their own spending power and their influence on family spending decisions.
Pirates and privateers
With the recent spate of marine piracy off the coast of Somalia, culminating in the abduction and rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, it’s a bit disorienting to see the word “piracy” used to refer to, well, pirates. That’s because for the last few decades the word has been much more often applied to those who “pirate” intellectual property such as software, music, and videos. In fact, the use of the word in that context has a surprisingly long history: Daniel Defoe, in 1703, used the term to describe printers who made unauthorized copies of his work.
Building Better Tech Habits: A Guide to Digital Well-being
Screen time is one of parents’ top tech-related concerns, according to MediaSmarts’ research, and it’s the most common source of tech-related conflict between parents and young people in Canada. Kids are worried about their screen use too: almost half say they spend too much time on their phones.
Managing Television and Streaming Video in the Home
Watching TV or streaming video should be a fun and relaxing activity for kids and adults alike—but too often it's a source of family conflict. If you're concerned about television, banning it isn't a practical solution. Instead, you need to learn to co-exist with television by managing how much your kids watch, and what. With more and more ways of viewing TV available we now have access to lots of both good quality and inappropriate TV content. In this crowded television environment, the key is to provide young children with a guided viewing experience and to model and teach them the critical thinking skills they need to be active, engaged viewers.
What is AI?
AI (artificial intelligence) is a way of using computer algorithms to do things with little or no human involvement.
Outcome Chart - Manitoba - Social Studies 12
This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Manitoba, Grade 12 Social Studies curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Outcome Chart - Manitoba - Social Studies 8
This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Manitoba, Grade 8 Social Studies curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Gambling - Overview
Young Canadians today are growing up in a culture where gambling is legal, easily accessible – especially online – and generally presented as harmless entertainment.
Tobacco, alcohol and cannabis
“Advertising has always sold anxiety, and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them they’re losers unless they’re cool.” (Mark Crispin Miller, The Merchants of Cool, 2000)