Page 4 Analysis and Critical Thinking

Media, including games, conveys values, and points-of-view.


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According to, Common Sense Education website, the following video will help kids think about the media they consume and create. Watch the video "Five Essential Media Questions for Kids".

Media communications tend to promote or publicize a particular point of view.

Media can provide selective or misleading information.  It can repeat emotional arguments to shape people's attitudes for or against a practice.

Thus, the media can have a large effect on social actions. Below is an example of how the media affected people to smoke or not. 


History often reveals how media affects society. For example, for 100 years, smoking was common. Tobacco was the first cash crop grown in North America. In the 1800s, smoking was popular in Europe and North America. Smoking was popularized by mass media in the early 1900s, especially during both World Wars. Smoking was advertised in movies, on TV, on the radio, at sporting events, in magazines, and on billboards.

By the 1960s, however, the health risks of smoking became apparent. Increasingly since the 1980s, tobacco companies have been restricted, or not allowed, to advertise in the media. Tobacco companies still pay for product placement as well as pay actors to smoke. For example, Lois Lane was paid $42 000 to smoke in Superman II, and tobacco promotion in a James Bond movie cost $350 000.

Generally, an effective media campaign has been waged against smoking. Therefore, public attitudes have swung away from this social practice and smoking has been banned in public.



Arguments for smoking in the 1800s and early 1900s sounded much like these arguments:

Arguments against smoking today sound much like these arguments:
Everybody's doing it. (Bandwagon or success)

It's natural. (Nature)

It's your body. You can choose what to do with it. (Self-indulgence)

Follow your feelings and impulses. Feelings are natural and good. (Emotion)

Show compassion and don't judge. Accept this behaviour in public. (Personal rights)

Smoking is relaxing and stress relieving. (Leisure or pleasure activity) 		The cost to society is too great. (Economic, Family)

Your behaviour is a choice. (Education)

It's not the way you were designed. (Health)

You can control your feelings. Some feelings are beneficial, other impulses such as smoking are not. (Moral)

Some things are better kept private. (Public good)

Statistics or evidence of health risks built an overwhelming case against smoking. Anti-smoking campaigns coupled with restricting tobacco advertising changed public opinion.



Games ask you to reason or think, to use logic, and to make connections. The more support and evidence (statistics, reasons, facts) you provide for your opinion, the more solid your argument. Making a decision without having all the facts or weighing the long-term consequences, can be dangerous. 



Show What You Know

In your downloaded assignment file for Lesson 5, complete Sections 2 and 3. Be sure to save your work


When you have completed all parts of Assignment 5,

be sure you have renamed your file (YOURNAME) la 8-1-5
upload the completed assignment into the 1.5 Assignment file on the next page
Check in two to three days to retrieve the marked assignment and review the feedback from your teacher.