Social Categorization and COVID_19 – Practically Speaking

Last week in CMNS 180 (Introduction to Intercultural Communication), for an assignment related to our unit on Culture, Communication and Social Categorization, I asked the class to:

Find a current news article or broadcast about Canada’s experience with Covid_19 that demonstrates some element of ingroup/outgroup; othering; or social categorization
Provide a link to the item
Provide your take on how the situation in the news relates to this topic

After reading all the responses, very pleased with how the took on the assignment, I sent them this email and I thought other people might like to see the list too.

Dear Class: “I thought you might like to see the broad range of topics and articles that were submitted to me for the Canada Now – Covid_19 assignment.

This is just the links with none of the related comments which I found really fascinating with some things that I hadn’t thought of and with so much direct relationship to communication. Some of this variety included things like ageism, finances, border crossing, conspiracy theories, racism and racist graffiti, Indigenous communities, partisan politics, and many more – have a look.

The down side? our society has a lot of work to do to be better.” Regards, M

Here is the list of links:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6929793/coronavirus-disability-touch-deprivation/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8X7G_oLnlE

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1060602

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/covid-19-public-health-order-warnings-1.5575468

https://globalnews.ca/news/6923971/coronavirus-canada-indigenous-concerns/

https://globalnews.ca/news/6963307/bc-coronavirus-covid-19-fees-business/

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/canadas-early-covid-19-cases-came-from-the-u-s-not-china-provincial-data-shows

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/as-covid-19-spreads-so-do-negative-stereotypes-of-the-young-and-the-old/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-ontario-quebec-covid-19-1.5524056

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-lets-not-kick-the-homeless-back-to-the-curb-when-the-coronavirus/