Thomas Tufte: The Study of Entertainment-Education and Health Citizenship

Abstract

This paper aims to review the outstanding contributions of Professor Thomas Tufte in the fields of communication and social change, with a particular focus on health communication. Professor Tufte integrates the ideas of empowerment and dialogue from Brazilian educator Paulo Freire into communication studies, summarizing and proposing the "Third Generation Development Communication" theory, which emphasizes community participation, attention to structural inequality, and citizen empowerment. In the field of health communication, he emphasizes the media cultural perspective of "Entertainment-Education" (E-E), which highlights the role of entertainment media in transmitting health information to influence individual behaviors and promote social structural change. Additionally, he advocates for health citizenship, arguing that citizens should be active agents in health decision-making and discussions. Against the backdrop of globalization and media proliferation, Professor Tufte calls for health communication to transcend the limitations of behavioral sciences, adopting interdisciplinary approaches that address the social roots of health inequalities, and building a citizen-centered communication agenda to address the complex global health challenges.