Objectives	To find out the participants’ attitude to stereotypes and deepen their knowledge.

Length About 90 min.
Materials Large sheets of paper, markers, tables, chairs.

Process

Prepare the room: put five tables with a sheet of paper and writing tools on each of them. The sheets should feature the following questions: What are stereotypes? What is the influence of stereotypes on the society? How does the media create stereotypes? How can the media influence our own attitudes? Does the media define certain societal standards? When the room is ready, divide the group into five teams. Each team sits at the table and has 5 minutes to discuss and answer the question, which is on their table. This is a brainstorming of short answers. 5 minutes later, the teams switch tables. After the fifth rotation, the team returns to the first sheet of paper. Then all groups present their sheets to the rest of the participants.

Summary

Summary after the presentations: 1. Did you find new ideas? Give examples. 2. Perhaps some question raised a heated discussion in the team, with the team members finding it difficult to come to a common answer? If so, what happened? 3. Were there any ideas in the presentations that you wouldn’t agree with? 4. Which question was the most difficult? Why? 5. Did your attitude towards stereotypes change? The media is one of the major sources of information, which can shape our world-view. This also includes stereotypes, which form due to misleading information, spread by the media. The media often dictates the rules on how all of us should live and what we should be interested in, although, of course, there are all kinds of media. Many of them also help us grow as personalities. Yet, it’s always very important to define what we expect from a certain media channel in order to avoid collecting all of the negative information.