This course aims at presenting an overview of media research developed in Latin America. Scholars from the region have played an important role in international debates concerning media democratization, alternative /community media and cultural studies. However, in the vast literature about the development of the communication field worldwide, media studies in Latin America remain highly unnoticed. The course will initially provide a brief introduction to Latin American (mass) media development as an ideological instrument by foreign governments, corporations and authoritarian rulers. You will also see how mass media technologies were used as instruments of resistance and creation of popular awareness and civic engagement. In this context, the lectures will describe how Latin American scholars have thought, advocated and employed media as mechanisms for regional self-understanding and social transformation.