ABSTRACT
Confronting increasingly challenging issues of inequality, disinformation, data surveillance, digital transformation, and globalization requires an informed and engaged citizenry. United Nations documents provide guidance to address the need for media empowerment in the ecology of everyday citizenship. Research suggests the necessity for open public spaces as locations for dialogue and communication. Educommunication, found predominantly within Latin American media education ecologies, may offer a path towards global engagement for promoters of critical media education. The concept of educommunication is examined and contrasted to the conception of critical media literacy. Connections to faculties of education as sites “of the people” are proposed. Results from a preliminary scan across Canadian educational spaces, focusing on connections to teacher education, are shared. This chapter concludes with an invitation to national and international dialogues about educommunication and critical media education to support the development of informed, attentive, and active media citizenship within teacher education programs as an essential contributor to a civic society.
