Communication of Agricultural Innovations in Latin America

Abstract

This article reviews the eras in the development of communication as a discipline in Latin America, and then concentrates on the recent period when agricultural diffusion became the most frequent type of communication research. The author is critical of diffusion research in Latin America because of its too-close copying of the "made-in-the-USA" classical diffusion model. The theoretical approach of Paulo Freire's "conscientization" is recommended as one corrective influence on the diffusion model in Latin America and elsewhere.