Biography

Rita Basílio de Simões is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra (FLUC), affiliated with the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information. She currently coordinates the PhD Programme in Communication Sciences and is a member of the Faculty's Pedagogical Council. She holds a PhD in Communication Sciences, a Master's in Communication and Journalism, and a Bachelor's degree in Journalism, all from the same institution. She also completed a Postgraduate Programme in Communication Law at the Legal Institute of Communication of the Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra. She is a full researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra and collaborates with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20) at the same university and with the Institute of Communication of NOVA (ICNOVA), at NOVA University Lisbon. She coordinates the Working Group on Gender and Sexualities of the Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences (SOPCOM) and is the national coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) - Who Makes the News?, promoted by the World Association for Christian Communication. Her research focuses on communication and media through an interdisciplinary lens, spanning the sociology of journalism, feminist and gender studies of the public sphere, critical internet studies, and criminology. Her work addresses themes such as media production and representation, the public sphere, crime and justice, digital media, violence, hate speech, digital technologies, and media regulation. She has coordinated and participated in various national and international research projects and networks. She currently leads the Portuguese participation in GMMP 2025 and is a researcher in the project UnCover - Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape (2022.03964.PTDC | 3/2023 to 2/2026). She was the principal investigator of the project Online Violence Against Women: Preventing and Combating Misogyny and Digital Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Gender Research4Covid-19 - FCT Proj. 58), and co-principal investigator of the project MyGender - Mediated Practices of Young Adults: Promoting Gender Justice in and Through Mobile Applications (PTDC/COM-CSS/5947/2020 | 3/2021 to 10/2024), both funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and developed at FLUC. Outside academia, she is a member of the Council of Europe's Expert Group on Violence Against Women and Girls Facilitated by Technology.