MediaSmarts and Digital Public Square brought together researchers, educators, policymakers and civil society leaders from across Canada for a roundtable on Systematic Approaches to Improving Digital Media Literacy in Canada. This report summarizes this discussion and the recommendations stemming from it.
As with other kinds of news, newsworthiness is the essential element of health and science coverage. Along with the factors that generally influence newsworthiness, Boyce Rensberger, in A Field Guide for Science Writers, identifies four factors specific to science stories:
Media components are found in all three goals of the Saskatchewan Arts Education curriculum: Creative/Productive, Critical/Responsive strand and Cultural/Historical.
Witnesses play a critical role when they witness acts and forms of bullying” and may suffer negative effects that are as bad as or worse than those suffered by the target. At the same time, there is evidence that youth who witness some kinds of cyberbullying may actually be more likely to perpetrate it themselves later.
This outcome chart contains media education learning outcomes from the Ontario, Curriculum for English, Grade 11 Media Studies, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
This outcome chart contains media education learning outcomes from the Ontario, Curriculum for English, Grade 11, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Like other genres and sub-genres, health and science news has standard tropes that are used by journalists and expected by audiences. These can have an impact on the accuracy and reliability of coverage.
Two of the most important kinds of information we look for online are about health and science: almost half of Americans, for example, report seeing science content in the previous few weeks, and a third follow a science-focused page or account online. However, nine in 10 Canadians, have seen misinformation on at least one of those topics.
If you’ve found that the source is reliable enough to be worth your attention, you can now read it more critically.
While young people use and engage with news differently from older generations, they continue to value concepts such as trustworthiness and fairness.