The concept of empowerment has become increasingly widespread in recent years. Its use is still, however, somewhat controversial and diverse, particularly when referring to young people. This article presents a systematic analysis of how empowerment has been conceptualized over the past 15 years and has been applied to young people. A systematic search of the major databases filtered by relevance provided 297 bibliographical references. The results confirm the ambiguous nature of the concept and the imprecision with which it is used, although they do link its use to three common concepts: power, participation and education. The concept of youth empowerment needs to be defined in order to highlight any nuances that distinguish it from the generic use of the term. The main dimensions associated with youth empowerment have been identified as: (a) that of growth and well-being; (b) relational; (c) educational; (d) political; (e) transformative; and, finally, (d) emancipative.

We live in a time of pressing planetary challenges, many of which threaten catastrophic change to the natural environment and require massive and novel coordinated scientific and societal efforts on an unprecedented scale. Universities and other academic institutions have the opportunity and responsibility to assume a leading role in an era when the destiny of the planet is precisely in the hands of human beings. Drawing on the Planetary Health project promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation and The Lancet, Pompeu Fabra University launched in 2018 the Planetary Wellbeing Initiative, a long-term institutional strategy also animated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Planetary Wellbeing might be defined as the highest attainable standard of wellbeing for human and non-human beings and their social and natural systems. Developing the potential of these new concepts involves a substantial theoretical and empirical effort in many different fields, all of them interrelated by the crosscutting challenges of global complexity, interdisciplinarity, and urgency. Close collaboration of science, humanities, and culture is more desperately needed now than ever before in the history of humankind.

Research on media sustainability has a long tradition of criticising climate change and environmental issues, mainly through content, and while it is important to do so, it seems that the sector is oblivious to the impact that it itself generates. Moreover, sustainability is often (and wrongly) only related to environmental impact, and very little research exists on how the audio-visual sector can be sustainable not only from an environmental standpoint, but also from a socio-cultural and economic one. This article constitutes a relatively new area that has emerged from the notion of Green Shooting, a term used to describe all the practices ranging from the pre-production, production and post-production to the publicising of an audio-visual product: Documentary, television series (including those of streaming platforms), videogame, film, festival or an advertisement. There has been little previous evidence of an academic article that brings together all the practices that several companies and initiatives worldwide have already implemented as emerging solutions to mitigate their impact, including new roles such as eco-assistant. The authors aim to develop an overarching theoretical framework of what already exists in the practical field, and make it available to the academic community.

La construcción de un modelo pedagógico del empoderamiento juvenil: espacios, momentos y procesos

Television series act as one of the primary sources of information on mental and neurological disorders. However, research on the accurate representation of mental disorders and clinical reality still lacks, especially since it requires an interdisciplinary approach with higher complexity. This article analyses the narrative depiction of depression, autism without intellectual disability, and antisocial personality disorder in three case studies: Atypical (Netflix, 2017-present), My Mad Fat Diary (E4, 2013-2015), and The End of The F***ing World (E4 & Netflix, 2017-2019). The aim is to identify which stereotypes are still predominant on-screen and determine whether they are reliable with their clinical reality. Hence, the authors propose a narrative content analysis based on the medication, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and Stahl’s Essential Pharmacology Guide. The authors applied a methodology based on the standard analysis measurement of different case studies under a unified pattern for mental disorders’ intrinsic socio-economic and gender aspects. The results showed that TV series try to opt for better representations, but many still perpetuate misconceptions and misrepresentations due to a tension between showing realistic, educational values (edutainment) and opting for a gripping audio-visual and narrative drama. In conclusion, diverse realities are hardly achieved. Moreover, TV series criticise how the anger is placed on oneself instead of the system.

TV series’ depictions of mental disorders have received considerable scholarly attention. However, few studies have considered the role of aesthetic elements in representing mental disorders. Therefore, in this study, we analysed how aesthetic features influence the representation of “psychopathy” in British coming-of-age TV series through the case study of The End of the F***ing World. We chose to analyse psychopathy due to its over-representation in the media and its often-mistaken conflation with the actual mental disorder of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). We applied an aesthetic methodology in our analysis. We analysed the series in terms of language, appearance, behaviour, music and sound, technical devices, and intertextuality, closely observing three sequences of various episodes that correspond to the character’s symptoms, diagnosis, medication, and treatment. Our findings show that the aesthetic characteristics, characters, and events of the plot can act as expressive means through which the experience of living with a mental disorder can be accurately represented and simultaneously entertain viewers with drama and suspense. The series challenges the reductionist perspective and previous stereotypes of audio–visual pieces related to ASPD, suggesting that future TV series can better represent mental disorders with the correct use of television aesthetics and cinematic devices.