Celebration for Communication Anthology

Jose Antonio Quiroga, Director of Plural, with Thomas Tufte and Luis Ramiro Beltran

The second launching –after Mexico last October- of the Communication for Social Change Anthology took place in La Paz (Bolivia) as part of the International Seminar on Local Radio in Latin America: Policies and Legislation, on November 2oth 2008, at Plural Editores bookstore. The presenters were former President of Bolivia Carlos D. Mesa, who also wrote the foreword, and Luis Ramiro Beltrán, one of the early pioneers of communication for development in Latin America. Both Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron and Thomas Tufte, the co-editors, were in attendance, as well as several authors such as Erick Torrico (Bolivia), Rosa María Alfaro (Peru) and Cicilia Peruzzo (Brazil).

Carlos D. Mesa mentioned that the title of the book was limited, since its content covers a much wider effort: “We could say that this is a universal anthology of communication, because it contains much more than what is specific to communication for development… This is a book of global features, the most complete, exhaustive and above all the most rigorous, as it gathers and interprets the views on communication for development since the criteria itself originated in the 1950s, until today”.
Luis Ramiro Beltran and Alfonso Gumucio at the launching in La Paz

During his intervention Luis Ramiro Beltrán said: “The way texts are arranged, first those considered of historical value and then those of the contemporary debate, makes the reading very easy and helps to understand the evolution of the discipline as well as to absorb both the pioneering ideas and the current thinking. We can at the same time compare the contributions from various continents and within our own region… Can we ask for more? Think about the advantage that this brings to professors and students of the field, as well as researchers and historians”.
To purchase a copy go to http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/publications-order.php