Category: media literacy

Posted in answers to media questions, digital parenting, image evaluation, media literacy, parent education, parents and technology

7 Advertising Strategies For Your Child to Know

Posted on by Marti Weston

In today’s world an advertisement focuses on a specific demographic and gender — kids, boys, girls, adolescents, tweens, young adults, seniors, and more.  This post, How Advertisers Target Kids,  at the Media Awareness Network, a Canadian organization, provides much more background information.   This PBS site, Don’t Buy It, Get Media Smart, explains how companies make advertisements, and then goes on to help children deconstruct (take apart and examine) them, and the images on this site are excellent.

Advertisers seek to combine images and music or sound with at least one or more strategies below, aiming to attract people, connect them to a product, and then encourage a purchase.

Advertising Strategies that are Used to Target Children Continue reading “7 Advertising Strategies For Your Child to Know” →

Posted in acceptable use, digital parenting, family conversations, media literacy, parents and technology

Terms of Use — How Much Can You Read?

Posted on by Marti Weston

I often write about parent-child conversations. We parents initiate these chats all the time, concentrating on this issue or that, and encouraging our children to participate, respond, or even disagree. When the talks focus on digital issues they can be enjoyable or arduous, or anything in-between. The fun but still educational conversations, however, only come along from time-to-time.

So the other day, when I read a posting by Linda Criddle over at the I look Both Ways blog, I became excited because kids will love the discussion on this topic — whether at home or school — and they will learn a lot in the process.

Criddle described her experience examining terms of use documents posted on well-known and popular websites. She looked over the terms of use documents for the sites such as the New York Times, Amazon, iPhone, Club Penguin. Then she ran each document through a readability index — a tool that examines a passage and estimates how easy or hard it will be for a person to read the words, as well as what level of education the reader might need to comprehend the information.

Continue reading “Terms of Use — How Much Can You Read?” →

Posted in answers to media questions, digital citizenship, digital photography, media literacy, parents and technology, privacy

Common Sense Media – Protecting Kids’ Privacy

Posted on by Marti Weston
Click to Visit Common Sense Media

Common Sense Media (CSM) is an advocacy group that I’ve noted a number of times on this blog. The group promotes media education rather than censorship and hands-on parent connections with their children’s media lives. President Obama mentioned CSM in his presidential campaign, lauding the organization’s “sanity not censorship” mission.

Currently Common Sense Media is focusing on privacy and kids with its Protect Our Privacy – Protect Our Kids campaign. The six goals of this effort, to which I’ve added a bit of additional explanation, include: Continue reading “Common Sense Media – Protecting Kids’ Privacy” →

Posted in answers to media questions, digital parenting, healthy media images, media literacy, parents and technology

Watch What You Watch – New Media PSA for Girls

Posted on by Marti Weston

A couple of weeks ago a group of media literacy advocates gathered in the Washington, DC area for the Healthy Media for Youth Summit, focusing on the importance of media literacy and the need to address negative female media images. According to a press release, the group  “…considered and identified ways to promote media messages that inspire, empower, and engage youth.”  Attendees watched the premier of this amazing and engaging public service video announcement.

After you watch the video, pass on the link to parents and teachers who will share it with young people. Any parent with a daughter moving into middle school and adolescence knows how frustrating it is to watch a child interact with unhealthy media images in magazines, movies, television shows, and now spread all over the World Wide Web. Parents of boys have similar concerns, though this particular PSA is aimed at young women and girls.

Continue reading “Watch What You Watch – New Media PSA for Girls” →

Posted in acceptable use, digital parenting, digital photography, image evaluation, media literacy, parents and technology

The Power of Instant Images: Digital Photography Series, Part I

Posted on by Marti Weston

So your child has a new digital camera or phone, a birthday or holiday present, or a just-for-fun gift, and photos are now speeding through the virtual world in every direction — via e-mail to friends, in a Flickr album, attached to a text message, and highlighting social networking comments. Before too many pictures find they way to these and other locations, take some time for a digital photo-taking orientation — a review of guidelines and expectations. Today’s world is a vastly different place, nothing like the photo-taking environment that most adults remember from their younger days, and photos can end up in unanticipated places or cause unforseen problems.

Photography in the last ten years or so has undergone extraordinary changes. No longer do we buy and load film. Nor do we wait a few days for processing to look at our pictures. Today instant access, in terms of speed and range of circulation, defines photography. Pair this speed with the occasional child or adolescent misjudgment, and an image becomes public in moments. This impulsive image sharing can cause hurt feelings, anger, and even accusations of cyber-bullying.

Continue reading “The Power of Instant Images: Digital Photography Series, Part I” →

Posted in acceptable use, Back-to-school digital reading, cell phones, digital parenting, media literacy, parent education, parents and technology, setting technology limits

Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks

Posted on by Marti Weston
From ClipArt for Free.blogspot.com

The beginning of a school year is a good time for families to set limits, explain rules, and in general, clarify expectations about technology use. Getting started in the fall, when everyone is off to a new grade and a fresh beginning, encourages healthy technology habits.

Depending on the age of your children, you may want to accomplish some or even all of the tasks on this list, encouraging everyone to think responsibly and become committed digital citizens.

Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks

Continue reading “Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks” →

Posted in acceptable use, digital citizenship, media literacy, parent education, parents and technology

Eight Questions to Ask When Media is Manipulated

Posted on by Marti Weston

Digital media manipulators use and modify information in any way necessary to support their views. The truth, context, intention, and even a person’s reputation are irrelevant, as Mrs. Shirley Sherrod discovered this week. What do children learn during these media spectacles?

While it’s tempting to focus on the unprincipled young-adult blogger who posted the edited, out-of-context video, the more compelling issue is how it’s increasingly acceptable to use digital media to embarrass and publicly humiliate others. Although the victim can be in the national news, more often it’s a child on the other side of a classroom. Thus the task of initiating conversations to help children understand ethical digital behavior takes on greater urgency.

These questions aim to help a parent get started. Continue reading “Eight Questions to Ask When Media is Manipulated” →