The social media industry

The social media industry represents a profound transformation of the traditional media landscape, moving from hierarchical, one-way communication to decentralized, interactive digital networks.[1] Today’s dominant platforms are best defined as "two-sided platforms that primarily host user-generated content distributed via algorithms, while allowing for interactions among users.”[2] This highly interactive and networked environment has created immense wealth for the platform operators while simultaneously establishing

Companion reading

Once you’ve found information online – or someone has shared it with you – how do you know if it’s true, or at least credible? In other words, how do you verify the information? The internet is a unique medium in that it allows anyone – not just experts – to write on any topic and to broadcast it to a wide audience.

Best practices for improving crime reporting

To counteract the structural biases and sensationalist tropes that currently dominate crime coverage, newsrooms must deliberately shift their practices toward accountability, context and the humanization of those affected. Improving crime reporting requires journalists to articulate a new journalistic purpose and prioritize structural analysis over episodic details.

Outcome Chart - Saskatchewan - English Language Arts Levels 30-A

This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Saskatchewan, Grade 12 English Language Arts curriculum (ELA 30-A), with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Outcome Chart - Atlantic Provinces - English Language Arts 7

This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation, English Language Arts curriculum, Grade 7, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Each Atlantic Province follows closely the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation Framework for English Language Arts. In this Framework, media literacy is integrated throughout the English Language Arts curriculum under the general learning outcomes of Speaking and Listening, Reading and Viewing and Writing and Other Ways of Representing.

Sex and Relationships in the Media

The pressure put on teens through ads, television, film and new media to be sexually attractive—and sexually active—is profound. Not only that, but media representations of relationships often teach unhealthy lessons.

The development of Indigenous media 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]

Social networks: How Facebook changed the Internet

It's been a busy few months for Facebook: a government investigation, another in a seemingly endless series of changes to the site's privacy controls, a New Yorker profile of its famously publicity-shy founder and the upcoming release of The Social Network, a thoroughly unauthorized account of its early days. With all of the publicity and controversy around Facebook – not to mention its still-growing popularity – it's almost impossible to remember what online life was like before it. In fact, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that those who began using the Internet after the introduction of Facebook and its competitors do so in a way that is fundamentally different from older users.