Luis Ramiro Beltrán: el pensamiento comunicacional propio y emancipador en Latinoamérica rebelde

Abstract

With over sixty years of intellectual production, the bolivian comunicologist Luis\nRamiro Beltran contributed with theoretical propositions and thematic lines to the\norigin and the formation of a critical thinking in Latin America. By questioning, in\nthe 1970s, the foundation of Communication for modernization, Beltran embodied\na movement in the Social Sciences in Latin America, particularly in the emerging\nfield of Communication Sciences, that will contribute to a theoretical and methodological\ncritical awakening in the region. He dennounced the affiliation of mass communication\nto the power structures in the region; he unveiled the importation of development models mismatched and unrelated to the realities of Latin America; he\nproposed policy actions to counteract the unbalanced flow of information and communications\nand promote genuine development through National Communication\nPolicies; and also worked to strengthen the role of the development contribution\nof communication, with particular emphasis on the lastdecade in the relationship\nbetween communication and health. In his later years before his death, in July 2015,\nalso he made a unique contribution to promoting the study, from a decolonized\nlook, of pre-Columbian indigenous communications in the region.