Up until really recently (like, last week), I thought that an audience can consume a lot of media without it having a negative effect on it, as long as members of said audience are media literate, take the time to reflect on the message actually contained in the media they are consuming, and analysing how… Read More Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy Consumption of Unhealthy Media?
Happy Sunday! I use Sundays to plan and prepare for the upcoming week. I have been asked so many times about the resources that help me plan a full week that I decided to launch the “Planning the Week” feature with two concomitant components: a recommended book to make your commute easier and a planning/planner… Read More Book Recommendation: ‘Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash’ by Timothy Caulfield
Social media is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good… Or not so good. In the context of family life, I have been reading on various discussion boards and forums about the effects of social media on family life. On the one hand, it can be quite inspiring to see… Read More Social Media: Sharing Joy instead of Stroking Envy
It’s election season in North America! Just like Thanksgiving, Canada went first, and soon the US will follow. These elections are being touted as being of particular importance; after watching the markets go up and down in the last couple of weeks, I have come to the brilliantly original conclusion that it’s because things aren’t… Read More Eeny-meeny-mino-mo, catch a leader by the toe…
As the world becomes smaller, be it with the help of intercontinental traveling or the Internet, it is becoming more and more evident that an easily definable identity is a thing of the past. If music is a good reflection of an individual’s identity, the increasing number of crossover musical genres testifies to this coming… Read More Book Review: Post Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity by Ytasha L. Womack
The most recent rape scene in Game of Thrones is serving as a potent form of fuel for an ongoing debate: does exposure to violence in the media we consume cause behavioral problems or not? Does it do so for only an at-risk segment of the population? Would limiting the creation of violent media solve… Read More Violence in the Media We Consume: Is it worth the risk?
I found an old copy of O, The Oprah Magazine in my stuff earlier this week. I used to read those regularly, part of a chain of friends who would read them, be amazed by the wisdom it contained, and pass them along, sometimes with little notes tucked into it. I smiled and decided to… Read More O, Are You Really About Empowerment? Some Thoughts Post Magazine Ad Dissection
I have a confession to make: I’m a little bit of a documentary junkie. I just finished watching Food. Inc for the third time, and I intend to watch it another time… If not more. Because time is limited, I have to select the documentaries I watch (and re-watch) very carefully; usually they have to… Read More Knowledge as a Source of Empowerment versus a Cause for Despair
Let’s be honest here: I’m turning into quite the Anna Staniszewski fan, what with my review of I’m With Cupid, The Gossip File, and The Prank List, and her two previous appearances on Sahar’s Blog, the first in the form of a guest post centered on The Gossip File and her first appearance in the… Read More Author Spotlight: Anna Staniszewski
A community is in part defined by the relationships that binds its inhabitants. More specifically, the number of relationships, their nature, and their quality will have a big influence on the life the community. Both Friends and The Big Bang Theory have given millions of fans something that seems to be, on screen, very healthy:… Read More Community-Building and Friendship in the Era of Friends and The Big Bang Theory