"[...] this issue of the Journal features a symposium of communication scholarship with Latin America as its focus. The symposium was suggested and skillfully brought to fruition by Elizabeth Fox, a Washington, D .C.-based communication policy researcher with broad contacts and experience in Latin America. As Dr. Fox notes in her introduction, this symposium shows how Latin American scholars are “concerned with basic issues of democratization and equality, while searching for new paths of scientific analysis, policy relevance, and social application.” Those values (democracy and equality) and those goals (policy relevance and social applications) are particularly pronounced in Latin American scholarship. But I would argue that they are also well worth some serious thought by all of us who work as communication researchers and who would like to see what we do make a positive difference in the world." (Editor's note)