ABSTRACT
In some ways, Latin American media research since the 1950s has shown a remarkably consistent commitment to critical analysis, rising to meet the demands of the political circumstances of each period. In other ways, it has come full circle, from the applied media development research of the 1950s and 1960s to the applied media development research of the 1990s. Surveying Latin American communication research trends, I want to argue that these two tendencies, the ability to engage in political activism and the ultimate return to a more applied discipline are results of the way the media developed in the region and the changing relationship between the media and the Latin American state, rather than of some special critical insight of Latin American intellectuals.
