Making kids media savvy

Pretzels, pop and peanuts: What else would a family need to enjoy America's annual Superbowl? A censor, perhaps. Settling in for a good time, parents watched the much-talked-about 2004 halftime show that featured song, dance and…Janet Jackson's breast.

Alarms sounded, parents complained and apologies were made. Nudity shouldn't be displayed on prime-time television, folks said — kids are watching. What lessons will children learn when they see a celebrity having her clothing ripped away by a male pop star?

Debbie Gordon, managing editor of Mediacs.ca, a Web site that features media literacy workshops, wasn't too worried about her students (including her own two kids) being negatively affected by the supposed "wardrobe malfunction." The only alarms Gordon considered were the ones going off in her students' heads signalling an affront of commonly used shock tactics meant to evoke a publicity buzz.

"Media savvy kids were able to see the media toolbox hard at work during that halftime show - they weren't buying that message," she says.

Gordon says students of the Mediacs.ca media literacy workshops are taught to understand the real purpose and message behind advertising. They think through commercial messages critically and intellectually, rather than emotionally, and this enables them to separate fact from fiction and need from want.

Kids, she said, become media savvy by learning how to "deep read" these messages so they can recognize the media strategy behind the advertising first and then judge the product accordingly.

In other words, no one likes to be duped — not even kids. Gordon's workshops reveal to her students that the media manipulates them, and their wallets, by using highly choreographed advertising tactics that push emotional buttons and evoke a consumer response. Kids are especially susceptible to peer pressure so they can be easily blinded by products that promise acceptance. But media savvy kids are less likely to buy into, for example, the message that a particular brand of jeans will make them popular.

Click on the second page of this article for descriptions of activities Mediacs.ca highlight in their super savvy media survival courses. The activities are suitable for kids from Grade 3 to Grade 12. Just utilize the age- and gender-specific media and commercial topics that affect your kids.