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.
After the controversy surrounding last year's proposed copyright bill C-61, which eventually died on the order table when Parliament was prorogued, the Federal government has decided to hold consultations across Canada before introducing a new version of the bill. While only time will tell how responsive the government will be to the public's submissions, the series of town halls and round tables is definitely a good start in making the process transparent and taking the views of a wide variety of Canadians into account. Below is an expanded version of MNet's submission to the Round Table held in Gatineau, Quebec on July 29th 2009.
This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Ontario, Grade 7 Language curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Doctors urged to educate parents and children about healthy media habits
CALGARY (June 19, 2003) - Media today play a powerful role in the lives of young Canadians. And health care professionals now know that in addition to positive implications, media consumption may also be linked to health issues such as sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, obesity, poor body image and low self-esteem, and even risky sexual behaviour.
Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts. Sada’s Profile was developed by Grace Foran, Robert Porter, Valerie Steeves and Andrea Villanueva as part of The eQuality Project .
Level: Secondary Cycle One and Two
Duration: 1 to 1 ½ hours, plus time for the evaluation activity
Subject Area: English Language Arts, Ethics and Religious Culture, Physical Education and Health
I feel like I should knock wood when I say this, but it feels like maybe, someday, this lockdown might be over.
We’re still in rocky days as I write this, with active cases not dropping off as much as we all would like, and shops and attractions not as open as we would hope. But the vaccine is getting out there, albeit slowly, and some of the people we know have even received it already. Progress is being made, and we can start to dream of a time when life opens up again and we feel safer and more able to do the things we love to do.
This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Ontario Grade 5 Health and Physical Education 1-8 curriculum with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
"Given the opportunity, young people do care about issues relating to the harnessing and use of their information online. They want to know what information is being taken from them, and why. They want companies to be more open about how data is being used."
Quebec Competencies Chart - First, Do No Harm: Being an Active Witness to Cyberbullying