New Brunswick - Media Studies 120

Strand: Consumption

Big Idea: Media Theory

Skill Descriptor:

Employ critical literacy skills as media consumers.

Achievement Indicators:

Use media terminology (authorship, audience, content, purpose, format, etc.)

Identify codes and conventions of media

Examine other’s ideas and points of view presented, recognizing absent voices

Critically evaluate media ownership and governing regulations

Question and reflect on the role of the consumer

Evaluate and discriminate media consumption

Discuss how format influences audience and purpose

Critique effectiveness of media representation

Critically analyze issues of representation (ex. gender race, class, ability, etc.)

Explore the concept of access to media

MediaSmarts Resources

Big Idea: Media and Power

Skill Descriptor:

Examine how media influence and affect cultures.

Achievement Indicators:

Investigate the relationship between media and historical/contemporary cultures

Investigate the role of media in modern society

Question and promote awareness of global issues

Connect popular culture and life choices related to media

Articulate how media messages influence and manipulate audiences

Critically analyze the responsibilities of media to contemporary social justice movements

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Pre-bunk information portrayed through social media, apps, and digital tools.

Achievement Indicators:

Explore various forms of digital media, social media, deep fake technology and A.I.

Research the connection between technology and economics

Evaluate how things are curated based on algorithms, and how this leads to the creation of “echo chambers”

Investigate social media as a surveillance tool and discuss how data is collected and used

Explain the difference between mass communication and participatory media

Explore themes of ownership, control, and advertising

Research ethics and social media, data sovereignty, privacy issues, rights, content moderation and censorship

Determine the impacts of social media on communication, connection, and language

Discuss the impacts and implications of cyber violence

Investigate marketing and advertising targeted toward teens

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Explore immersive media practices and cultures.

Achievement Indicators:

Compare passive media and immersive media

Research gaming and virtual reality platforms

Investigate gaming culture

Experiment with 360 game and film making

Analyze the economics of immersive media

Examine the concept of ethical communication in immersive media

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Examine why Indigenous and non-Western perspectives have been historically marginalized in media.

Achievement Indicators:

Explore power relations

Critique negative representations of Indigenous and non-Western people in media

Investigate the impact of Indigenous tokenism and stereotyping in modern day and historical media

MediaSmarts Resources

Big Idea: Media Artifacts

Skill Descriptor:

Analyze values and ideologies in media texts.

Achievement Indicators:

Discuss ideologies present in media

Explore the role of propaganda

Analyze media coverage and portrayals of marginalized groups

Critique coverage and portrayals of diversity in media

Analyze headlines and how they influence our perception

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Discern the production process of media text.

Achievement Indicators:

Compare and contrast a wide variety of media texts and genres

Explain the stages of producing media texts (development, preproduction, production, postproduction, distribution)

Evaluate the ways in which texts are constructed for a particular purpose

Analyze the role of narrative in media

Experiment with methods of visual meaning making (ex. shots to convey different messages, montage, editing, etc.)

Dissect editing as a tool for meaning making

Investigate the impact of deliberate choices made to create meaning (ex. the use of montage)

Recognize and explain edits as a last chance for storytelling

Research various means of media distribution

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Examine personal histories and how they impact the reading of media texts.

Achievement Indicators:

Discuss how interpretation of media is directly related to personal history

Critically examine the effect of assumptions related to heritage and culture

Create questions that reflect interest and lead to deconstruction of texts

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Develop critical understandings of fiction and narrative media texts.

Achievement Indicators:

Present how various texts influence, manipulate, and reveal ideas, values, attitudes, and bias

Analyze the role of storytelling in fiction and narrative text

Discern how representations of truth and fiction are curated

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Develop critical understandings of documentary and journalism text.

Achievement Indicators:

Examine authorship and how it applies to documentary and journalism text

Critique the portrayal of misinformation and the role of ethics

Critically analyze the role of the citizen reporter

MediaSmarts Resources

Strand: Creation

Big Idea: Collaboration

Skill Descriptor:

Justify personal positions and respect the positions of others considering multiple ways of knowing and being

Achievement Indicators:

Articulate and respectfully justify points of view about texts and text elements

Apply specific media-related language and terminology in presenting viewpoint

Consider multiple ways of knowing and being when determining the value and relevance of information

Collaborate to create media texts for a variety of audiences and purposes

Interact in leadership and support roles to teach, explain, and clarify concepts, issues, and processes to peers

MediaSmarts Resources

Big Idea: Production

Skill Descriptor:

Use media to communicate an idea, adapting it for a variety of audiences and purposes.

Achievement Indicators:

Create an increasingly complex variety of media texts independently for a range of audiences and purposes

Demonstrate an understanding of the power and impact of choice to convey meaning

Critically examine the role of intended meaning vs. Interpretation

MediaSmarts Resources

Skill Descriptor:

Apply key concepts of media literacy as creators of media text.

Achievement Indicators:

Create media texts to demonstrate understanding of social, political, commercial, cultural, and diverse values

Compare the role of voice in media text to demonstrate understanding of who is represented/who is not

Analyze how public showcase impacts the credibility of work