This book explores the power of using media education to help urban teenagers develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. Drawing on 20 years of experience working with inner-city youth at the Educational Video Center (EVC) in New York City, the author looks at both the problems and possibilities of this model of media education. Highlights include: the changes schools and after-school programs need to make in order to create media education that empowers students to change their world; the intersection of literacy and culture as youth learn to analyze information from a variety of sources, including television, newspapers, books, films, school, church, and lives outside of school; case studies of students and teachers engaged in making video documentaries at EVC and in an alternative high school; the practical day-to-day challenges faced by professional developers and teachers working to change the way education is practiced in their classes and schools; the profound "disconnect" that results when teachers and curriculum fail to recognize the social and cultural contexts in which urban students live; and the critical thinking and technical video arts skills students develop as they learn to collaboratively conduct interviews, research, shoot, log, and edit their documentaries. (Contains 64 references.) (MES)