This "Theme Page" has links to information about Advertising in the Media. Students and teachers will find curricular resources (information, content...) to help them learn about this topic. In addition, there are also links to instructional materials (lesson plans), which will help teachers provide instruction in this theme. Please read our disclaimer.

Adbusters Culture Jammer's Headquarters

An organization dedicated to exposing corporations' million-dollar image and advertising campaigns intended to influence consumers' spending habits as archetypal mind polluters. "We will uncool their billion dollar images with uncommercials on TV, subvertisements in magazines and anti-ads right next to theirs in the urban landscape."

[An] Advertising Analysis Assignment

Check out this lesson plan from Chilliwack Senior Secondary School. Its objective is to understand the structure of advertisements by examining the differences between the implicit and explicit messages of advertisements.

AskERIC Lesson Plans

There are too many lessons on advertising in the ERIC database to list them separately so this link is to the page containing their search engine. Use the search term "advertising and lesson and plan" to get a manageable number of hits.

Buyer Beware! A Mass Media Unit

This three-week interdisciplinary teaching unit for Grade 8 students is designed to increase awareness of persuasion tactics found in printed material, television, and technology. Lesson plans are included to integrate it with Mathematics, Language Arts, Library, and Media Study courses.

Convince Me!

In this lesson plan, grade 4-6 students look for and analyze ads.

Dissect an Ad

Information at this site will help students to understand how ads work, what they're meant to accomplish, and how they're designed to have the desired impact. Although the focus of the ads is political, specifically the American presidential campaign, the underlying concepts can still be applied to the Canadian scene.

Electric Snow: TV in Our Time: Influence

This part of the Think Quest site "Electric Snow" offers articles and activities in this section to help high school students become aware of the ways in which television tries to influence people.

Family Newscast

A secondary lesson plan in which students are asked to produce a newscast and a commercial. It is designed so students will experience what is involved in creating a production and so they will understand the influence TV has on families.

Freedom of the Press

A secondary lesson plan using the video "All the President's Men" and focusing on the role the press plays as a watchdog for the citizenry.

Introduction of Restrictions on Freedom of Speech

A secondary lesson plan designed for the US Bill of Rights but it can be applied to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This lesson could be used to introduce the limits the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will ensure citizens.

Job Futures 2000

This site is presented by Canada's Ministry of Human Resources Development. Jobs Futures describes, in detail, employment opportunities, working conditions, and financial benefits in marketing and advertising.

Marketing Terms Arranged Alphabetically

An index of marketing terms that are listed alphabetically. If you wish, you can change the listing to show the terms by subject and by expanded definitions.

Media Awareness Network

"The Media Awareness Network is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to media education and media issues affecting children and youth." There are two sections in particular that teachers should review thoroughly. Check out "For Educators" for teaching units, student handouts, reports, and background material for the K-12 curriculum. See also their section on "Media Issues."

News & Record's NIE Lesson Plans

A lesson plan with activities designed for elementary through high school aged students. Although written for a specific publication, it is applicable to any newspaper. Students are asked to use the newspaper to evaluate the different advertisments, and judge their effectiveness.

(The) Noam Chomsky Archive

An index to the many works by Noam Chomsky - one of America's most prominent political dissidents. This site contains the full text to many of Noam Chomsky's major work, the complete audio to several important lectures, numerous articles, books, interviews, and speeches.

Open Directory Project

Here's a metalist of links to sites that offer a critical perspective on advertising. Check out the section on "critical commentary" as well as the collection of "kids and advertising".

Stay Free - Issue #13: Marketing To Kids

Issue #13 has more than fifteen articles focusing on marketing strategies in the 1990s. Most of these articles are interviews with individuals who are critical about various companies' marketing strategies that are directed at children .

(The) Task of Activist Media

A document written by Ellen Andors, Ph.D., that deplores the activities of today's mass media which tend to exist to support corporate goals. She emphasizes a need to create alternate forms of media that are neither owned by corporations nor require millions of dollars to broadcast a message.

TrackStar

TrackStar is an online interface that allows instructors to create lessons for students by sequencing existing instructional content in various Websites within a lesson. Students explore one topic at a particular location within one Website, then move on to the next topic at another Website. The list of topics remains visible throughout the lesson so that students can remain on track. Explorations of the Websites beyond the designated instructional content are also possible.

This link is to their search page from where a keyword search on "advertising" will produce numerous hits. Caution #1: Many of the Websites that these lessons access may already be on this CLN page - it's the creation of lesson objectives and the sequencing of the tours through the sites that make the lesson potentially useful to your students. Caution #2: The quality of the lessons (e.g., definining objectives, finding Websites, sequencing the tours) will vary widely within the TrackStar collection.

Note: The sites listed above will serve as a theme page for Advertising in the Media. For other resources in Media Literacy (e.g., curricular content, lesson plans, and theme pages), click the "previous screen" button below. Or, click here if you wish to return directly to the CLN menu, which will give you access to educational resources in all of our subjects.