Biography

Rita Basílio de Simões is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra (FLUC), in the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information, whose PhD in Communication Sciences she currently coordinates. She is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, where she has been developing research on media, gender and public space. She also collaborates as a researcher with the Institute of Communication of NOVA - ICNOVA, at the New University of Lisbon, and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Coimbra (CEIS20). She has a PhD in Communication Sciences from FLUC, a Masters Degree in Communication and Journalism and a Degree in Journalism from the same institution and a post-graduate degree in Communication Law from the University of Coimbra Law School. She is Coordinator of the Working Group on Gender and Sexualities of the Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences (SOPCOM), member of the General Assembly of the Portuguese Association of Women's Studies (APEM), and integrates the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the International Communication Association (IAMCR). Her work has focused on communication and media from a framework structured by multiple disciplinary territories, from the sociology of journalism to feminist and gender studies, critical studies of the Internet and criminology, and on issues such as gender and media representations; gender and information production, digital media and sociability; audiences, media use and consumption; violence and online hate. She has coordinated and participated in national and international projects and research networks in these fields. Since 2019, she is national coordinator of the "Global Media Monitoring Project - Who Makes the News?", under the responsibility of the World Association for Christian Communication. Outside academia, she is a member of the Council of Europe's expert committee on violence against women and girls facilitated by technology.