What's in the News?
Aims
- Encourage young people to find out what is happening in their local and national communities
- Enable young people to consider how communities are represented in the media
Resource
- Selection of Local and National newspapers
- Large sheets of paper
Instructions
The young people should work in groups of approximately five.
Distribute a number of pages from a selection of local and national newspapers. Ask the groups to ‘brainstorm’ and write down the issues and concerns facing communities locally, nationally and globally.
Then ask the young people the following questions based on what they have discovered in the newspaper:
- Are there stories about all the sections of the Sustainable Communities Wheel, or are there more stories about some sections than others?
- Do they think that newspapers give a fair representation of the communities they know?
- What would they feel if there are always negative stories about their community in the newspaper?
Extension activities:
Ask the young people to create positive news stories about what they would like to see written about their community. These stories could be compiled to create a local newspaper. The newspaper could have eight sections, one for each area of the Sustainable Communities Wheel