Thank you.
My name is Cathy Wing. I'm the co-executive director of the Media Awareness Network, Réseau Éducation-Médias.
I'm very pleased to be here today to present this submission to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage as it debates Bill C-327, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act.
We laud the motivation behind this bill protecting the health and the well-being of Canadian children. And we welcome this opportunity to illustrate the critical role that media education plays in supporting the healthy development of children, and in giving Canadian citizens—adults and children—the tools they need to effectively manage media content issues.
Media violence is an issue that educators, broadcasters, parents, and academics have been debating for many years in this country. Throughout this long-standing debate, media education and the fostering of media literacy skills in young people have always been recognized as key elements in any effective strategy to address the issue.
Indeed, the CRTC's 1996 public notice on TV violence stated that although industry codes, classification systems, and technology would play a role, public awareness and media literacy programs represented most of the solution to the issue.
Our organization was born out of a CRTC round table on TV violence in 1995. It was initially formed under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada. Since that time this national, bilingual, not-for-profit education organization has firmly established itself nationally and internationally as a leading centre in media education. Since our inception we've been fortunate to have had the long-standing support of Canadian media industries and the Government of Canada, both through financial contributions and participation on our board of directors.
Our vision is to ensure that Canadian children and youth possess the necessary critical thinking skills and tools to understand and actively engage with media.
Belief in the importance of media literacy in the education of young people is growing in this country. It is now a mandated area of curriculum in every province and territory, and our resources and programs are used in every jurisdiction in Canada by school boards, faculties of education, libraries, and community organizations.
Young people today often are spending more time interacting with media than they are in school. When they're using media—watching television, listening to music on their iPods, surfing the web—they're absorbing a large part of their knowledge about the world and themselves and others. And this informal learning is generally taking place without critical reflection or guidance.
For this reason, it is essential that young people are taught critical thinking skills in order to be thoughtful and engaged users of all media. A media-literate individual has the critical thinking skills to interpret and value media content and to understand media's cultural, political, commercial, and social implications.
One of the primary lessons of media education is that media productions are not reality, but they are deliberate constructions and the result of a series of choices. Media education encourages young people to consider the role of violence in media. Is it essential to the plot of a movie? Is it factored in just for drama or excitement? What are the differences between real-world violence and media violence? Is the violence shown to have realistic consequences or does it trivialize the psychological and physical trauma of real-life violence? How is it used to sell films to international audiences? What is the role of violence in news programming? What are the impacts on society? And how do factors such as age, gender, race, religion, and cultural background affect how we interpret violent media?
The media education curriculum also teaches students that they have a voice and a role to play as active media consumers who can talk to the entertainment industries and express their opinions through the mechanisms we have in place in Canada to address media content issues.
There is a body of research emerging that is examining media literacy as a health promotion strategy. Several studies point to its effectiveness in mitigating potential negative media influences on the physical and mental well-being of children and youth. For example, research has indicated that media literacy lessons incorporated into standard curriculum can help reduce potentially harmful effects of TV violence on very young viewers.
One U.S. study of third and fourth graders who were given a course in media literacy decreased their time spent watching TV, playing video games, and reduced their use of verbal and physical aggression as judged by their peers.
Another study of a year-long media literacy curriculum found children in early grades watched less violent TV and identified less with aggressive characters after the intervention.
Other studies have concluded that media literacy can help high-risk youth develop more responsible decision-making skills. An evaluation of a media literacy intervention program implemented by the Massachusetts juvenile justice system showed that learning to deconstruct media messages helped juvenile offenders think critically about the consequences of risky behaviours and helped them develop strategies to resist these impulses.
Helping to support the healthy development of children and youth through the acquisition of media literacy skills has become more critical than ever as our young people turn to the Internet as their main source of entertainment, information, and communications.
Our media environment has changed considerably since Canada's broadcasting initiatives were introduced to address TV violence. The convergence of media platforms and the availability of wireless communications technologies mean that rating and classification systems and legislation and industry codes and guidelines are no longer enough to protect children, particularly as they increasingly use the Internet to access video games, television, movies, and music.
We were born at the same time as the World Wide Web and we've grown with the Internet. We've watched its potential being realized and we've monitored the risks and concerns associated with its use. It was clear from the start that the Internet would bring new challenges to many of the media issues of concern we were dealing with, particularly media violence.
In 2005 we conducted a national survey of more than 5,200 Canadian students about their Internet use. One-third of kids' favourite websites contained violent content, and 34% of Grade 9 boys said they had visited a violent gore site on purpose. New research from anti-racism organizations shows that violent and hateful content is growing in interactive web environments such as social networking sites and user-generated video sites.
In this new media landscape where our young people are moving beyond geographic and regulatory borders to access media content, responsibility for protecting children is shifting to individual households, schools, and communities. There is no question that media violence is and will continue to be an area of concern to Canadians, as evidenced by the proposed legislation from the honourable member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. As media violence continues to be debated in our public institutions, Media Awareness Network encourages all Canadians to support the practice of media literacy as a key response to media content issues of concern.
Thank you.