Lesson: Understanding Influencers
In this lesson, students learn how to recognize influencer ads and the techniques that influencers use to promote parasocial relationships . They then extend their understanding to other kinds of ads that don’t make direct sales claims, such as product placement, identity ads and satire.
Grade range: 7-8
Teacher Material: https://pressbooks.pub/mediasmarts/chapter/understanding-influencers-2/
Student Material: https://pressbooks.pub/mediasmarts/chapter/understanding-influencers/
Time Frame
| One class period (75 minutes) | Two or three class periods (150-225 minutes) | |
| Activities |
Understanding Influencers Unboxing Influencers
|
Understanding Influencers Unboxing Influencers Alternate Ads Alternate Ad Audit
|
Preparation:
- Make sure that you are able to show the embedded videos or that students are able to access the links.
- Make sure that students are able to access the interactive activities.
Learning Outcomes
Big ideas/key concepts: Students will understand that…
Each medium has a unique aesthetic form:
- Advertising uses different techniques and appeals for different product
Media have commercial considerations:
- The purpose of advertising is to try to get you to like or buy something
- Advertisers use different media, approaches and techniques to reach different audiences
Key questions:
- How can we recognize when something is advertising?
- How do ads persuade us without making claims about what they’re selling?
Essential knowledge: Students will know…
- Consumer awareness: Not all ads make a claim about the product; techniques used by “soft sell” ads
- Key vocabulary: Influencer, satire, parasocial relationship
Performance tasks: Students will be able to…
- Access: Collect examples of soft-sell ads
- Understand: Analyze ads to identify the techniques they use
- Engage: Reflect on how advertisers create parasocial relationships
Curriculum Connections
Strand A: Literacy Connections and Applications
A2. Digital Media Literacy
A2.2 Online Safety, Well-Being, and Etiquette
demonstrate an understanding of how to navigate online environments safely, manage their privacy, personal data, and security, and interact in a way that supports their well-being and that of others, including seeking appropriate permission
A2.4 Forms, Conventions, and Techniques
evaluate the use of the various forms, conventions, and techniques of digital and media texts, consider the impact on the audience, and apply this understanding when analyzing and creating texts
A2.5 Media, Audience, and Production
demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationships between the form, message, and context of texts, the intended and unintended audience, and the purpose for production
Strand C: Composition (Expressing Ideas and Creating Texts)
C1 Knowledge About Texts
C1.2 Text Forms and Genres
Grade 7: analyze a variety of text forms and genres, including cultural text forms, and explain how their characteristics help communicate meaning
Grade 8: analyze and compare the characteristics of various text forms and genres, including cultural text forms, and provide evidence to explain how they help communicate meaning
C1.4 Visual Elements of Texts
Grade 7: analyze and compare how images, graphics, and visual design create, communicate, and contribute to meaning in a variety of texts
Grade 8: evaluate how images, graphics, and visual design create, communicate, and contribute to meaning in a variety of texts
C3 Critical Thinking in Literacy
C3.1 Literary Devices
Grade 7: describe literary devices, including foreshadowing, allegory, and symbolism, in a variety of texts, and explain how they help create meaning and are appropriate for the intended purpose and audience
Grade 8: analyze literary devices, including irony, satire, and allusion, in a variety of texts, and explain how they help create meaning and are appropriate for the intended purpose and audience
C3.2 Making Inferences
Grade 7: make local and global inferences, using explicit and implicit evidence, to develop interpretations about various texts and to extend their understanding
Grade 8: make local and global inferences, using explicit and implicit evidence, to explain and support their interpretations about various complex texts
C3.3 Analyzing Texts
Grade 7: analyze complex texts, including literary and informational texts, by evaluating, synthesizing, and sequencing relevant information and formulating conclusions
Grade 8: analyze complex texts, including literary and informational texts, by evaluating, synthesizing, and sequencing relevant information and formulating conclusions
C3.5 Perspectives Within Texts
Grade 7: explain explicit and implicit perspectives communicated in various texts, including narrative texts, provide any evidence that could suggest bias in these perspectives, and suggest ways to avoid any such bias
Grade 8: analyze explicit and implicit perspectives communicated in various texts, evaluate any evidence that could suggest bias in these perspectives, and suggest ways to avoid
A parasocial relationship is when you feel like you know someone you only know through media. People can form parasocial relationships with celebrities, influencers and even cartoon characters.
The use of irony, sarcasm, or other forms of humour to expose or criticize human folly or vice.