Articles Archive - 2007

Celebrate Canada’s Second Annual National Media Education Week

Media Awareness Network (MNet) and the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) are partnering for the second consecutive year to present National Media Education Week, November 5-9, 2007. The purpose of the week is to promote media literacy as a key component in the education of young people, and to encourage the integration of media education into Canadian schools, homes and communities.

Many children today spend more time interacting with media than they do attending school. While young people are immersed in media environments—watching, reading, listening, interacting, and creating—they are learning about the world and forming perceptions of themselves and others.  This “informal” learning is happening largely without adult guidance or critical reflection. In order to be literate today, young people need to develop a whole range of critical thinking, communication and information management skills to apply to their use of media—and media education is an essential tool in helping them acquire these skills.

The partners in this initiative are long-time supporters of media education in Canada. Media Awareness Network is a leading provider of media literacy programs and resources for education and awareness. MNet also conducts Canada’s largest research project on children’s Internet use: Young Canadians in a Wired World. The Canadian Teachers’ Federation, through its landmark 2003 study, Kids’ Take on Media, has educated teachers and the public about the important role media play in the lives of children and youth.

MNet and CTF are working with teacher and media education organizations, libraries, and community-, parent- and youth-based groups to develop and promote a wide range of activities in support of National Media Education Week 2007. These activities include: parent information sessions, student contests, media fairs, panel discussions, professional development workshops and conference presentations.

We encourage you to mark your calendar now and plan to get involved. The following is a list of suggestions for media education activities that can be easily implemented in your school or community.

1) Promote National Media Education Week

Organizations interested in helping spread the message about National Media Education Week are welcome to participate. Here's how you can get involved:

• Put a link to the National Media Education Week site, www.mediaeducationweek.ca, on your intranet or Web site.
• Sign up for the National Media Education Week bulletin through the Web site, and promote this great initiative through communications with your employees, clients and organization members.

2) Host a media fair

Use a media fair to highlight student-produced media productions. Include all your local school boards in the event and invite a variety of local organizations - universities, local media, book publishers, law enforcement, Internet service providers, etc. - to participate as judges, exhibitors and presenters during the fair.

3) Organize a parent information evening or workshop

Media Awareness Network's Parenting the Net Generation workshop is available to English provincial home and school associations through a partnership with the Canadian Home and School Federation. The workshop educates parents about what kids are doing online and offers strategies for ensuring safe, wise and responsible Internet use in the home. Check with your provincial or local home and school association to arrange a free workshop for your school.

4) Hold a public forum, panel discussion or town hall meeting

Choose a media-related topic of interest to your community and invite students, members of the media, researchers, NGOs and industry and government representatives to discuss and debate. Invite the public to attend. Arrange media coverage beforehand.

5) Present a professional development workshop

Hold an Internet literacy workshop for teachers, librarians or parents in your community.  For more information contact Media Awareness Network at: info@media-awareness.ca 

6) Organize or participate in a student contest

Pick a media theme and have students produce either a piece of writing or a media product (audio, video, photography, digital animation, etc.) related to the theme.

6) Be a media detective

Challenge young people to investigate how environmental issues are covered by media. For a period of one week, have them track environmental stories that appear in newspapers or TV news programs. For newspaper stories, ask kids to identify where or how they are presented (length of articles, which page they appear on, whether there are accompanying pictures). For stories that appear on TV news programs, ask when and how they are presented (length of segment, when they appear, footage or interviews). When kids have finished their media monitoring logs, have them compare the coverage of environmental issues with the coverage of other issues.

7) Participate in Buy Nothing Day

Encourage young people to participate in Buy Nothing Day. This annual event falls on the day after the American Thanksgiving in November, traditionally the first day of Christmas shopping in the U.S. People are encouraged to not make any purchases throughout the entire day. The idea is to increase participants' awareness of their spending habits and to think about mass consumerism and its effect on the cultural and natural environment of the world.

8) Create a commercial

Have young people investigate and identify the tricks of the advertising trade by creating a commercial for a fictional product. Marketers try many strategies to get people to buy their products and what they are often selling is an idea, or a lifestyle, rather than the product itself.

9) Challenge stereotypes with storyboards

Stereotypes are common in media, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries - which need audiences to understand information as quickly as possible. Have kids storyboard a short scene from a movie, commercial, music video or television program, in which a stereotype was presented. Get them to change the scene by replacing the stereotype with a more accurate portrayal. For more information on stereotyping in media, visit: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/index.cfm

10) Debate freedom of information versus censorship on the Internet

Have young people discuss and debate whether or not information and online content should be censored, filtered or if such practices violate an individual's freedom of information and expression. Challenge them to brainstorm scenarios and practical solutions to support their argument.

11) Deconstruct magazine covers

Have young people address the pressures to look perfect by deconstructing magazine covers aimed at a youth audience. Ask them:

• Does the magazine cover promote individualism or does it reinforce the idea that young people should be more concerned with looks, relationships and the approval of others?
• Do the physical ideals represented in this magazine reflect reality? Who is not represented here?
• Do the topics explored in this magazine reflect the real concerns of young people?

Have them create a profile of a 'typical' young person, based on the cover of the magazines. Ask them if this is an accurate profile of someone in real life? Challenge them to create a cover for a fictional magazine that they would like to read, aimed at real young people.

For more information on how you can take part in National Media Education Week 2007, visit the Web site at: www.mediaeducationweek.ca. Please contact Media Awareness Network at nmew@media-awareness.ca with your ideas and plans for celebrating the week so we can add them to our list of activities and events.

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Media Awareness Network is a Canadian not-for-profit centre of expertise and excellence in media education. Its vision is to ensure children and youth possess the necessary critical thinking skills and tools to understand and actively engage with media.

Canadian Teachers' Federation is the national voice of over 215,000 teachers across the country, acting as an advocate for public education, teachers and children. CTF is a member of the 29-million member strong Education International.

© 2007 Media Awareness Network

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