Empowerment Education

Within a framework of media literacy and health promotion for youth, this article reviews the literature establishing that population health and well-being are intimately tied to, and consequences of, power and powerlessness, and that empowerment education is an effective model for achieving personal and social change. A comparison of the components of the empowerment education constructs of Freire, public health, and media literacy establishes the pedagogical links between public health and media literacy. An examination of the community-based and universalistic foundations of the media literacy and public health movements, and the dominant systems that oppose them, suggests strength in working together.