Dr Carolina Matos

Overview

Dr Carolina Matos is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Sociology at the Department of Sociology and is also the Programme Director of the MAs in Media and Communications and International Communications and Development (ICD). Matos has nearly 30 years of professional experience, in academia and journalism, having been a former full-time journalist for over 10 years before becoming an academic. She has been teaching and researching for over 18 years in universities throughout the UK and has also been a visiting researcher abroad, from Brazil to Finland. Dr Matos obtained her PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London, with no corrections in January 2007, with a thesis on the relationship between journalism and democracy in Brazil. Matos' research is on media, gender and development, the role of communications for social change and of new technologies, media, democracy and the public sphere as well as health communications, poverty and sexual and reproductive health and rights. In 2018, Matos was successful in obtaining funding for the research project, Gender, health communications and online activism in the digital age, through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), provided by Research England and which is a key component of the UK's overseas aid strategy and part of the UK's Official Development Assistance (ODA), which was completed in October 2021 and will be published as a manuscript in 2022. Matos is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and is currently co-chair of the Gender and Communications section of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), having been elected in June 2020.

Before joining the Sociology department at City, University of London in 2013 as a lecturer, Dr Matos was a part-time lecturer in the Government department at the University of Essex. Before this Matos was an LSE Fellow in Political Communications at the London School of Economics (LSE), having also taught at UEL, Goldsmiths and St. Mary's Twickenham. Matos obtained the Postgraduate Certificate in teaching in UK HE from the LSE in June 2011, having also taught at the LSE Executive. She was also a visiting lecturer at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, in 2012 on an MA in Global Media, having also received a small grant to research in Sweden from the University of Orebro when she was doing her PhD. Matos throughout the years has delivered many keynote speeches, such as for the University of Coimbra in Portugal in September 2019, as well as having attended many conferences and workshops abroad, including in the US, Finland, Portugal, Brazil, Dubai and Egypt. During the first term of 2019, Matos was a visiting researcher at the IESP UERJ Institute in Brazil, working alongside PhD research students in Brazil and India on her research on the use of communications and new technologies by feminist and health NGOs for gender development. In 2017, Matos was shortlisted by City Sociology students for the Learning and Enhancement Teaching Awards in the category of assessment and feedback.

Matos has published three books, many chapters and journal articles, in journals and book editions which have included the journals International Sociology, Critical Sociology, American Journal of Sociology, Mediapolis, and Feminist Media Studies as well as published with IB Tauris, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Intellect Books, Rowman and Littlefield, Lexington Books and McGIll-Queen's University Press among others. Her current research is due to be published by McGill Queen's University Press in 2022. One of her books, Media and politics in Latin America, received in 2012 an honourable mention for the Cecil B. Currey Books Awards on the best book on the Third World by the Association of Third World Studies (ATWS) as well as the prestigious international prize 2014 Premio Jabuti prize, winning first place in the category of communications.

Matos also sits on the editorial board of a few journals in the field, including the International Journal of Digital Television, Brazilian Journalism Research (BJR), the Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies and is also part of the editorial board of the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics. She has also done peer review for countless publishers and journals, including New Media and Society, Bulletin of Latin American Research, the European Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Journalism Practice, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, The International Journal of Press/Politics, Commons, Global Media, Women's Studies International Forum and American Journal of Sociology. Matos' work is concerned with structural inequalities in societies, particularly of gender but also the intersections with class and race. She is also interested in processes of democratization and the ways in which cultures of journalism and the media can contribute to social change.

In her earlier work Matos examined the role of public service broadcasting (PSB) and the media in democratization in Latin America in a comparative perspective with Europe and the UK. She has researched both the mainstream media as well "alternative" journalism, the third sector and NGOs, particularly now looking at the use of communication tools by social and feminist movements and NGOs. Her methods include both qualitative and some quantitative approaches, from content analysis and surveys to interviews, critical discourse analysis (CDA), ethnography and participant observation. Matos throughout the years has given many interviews to the press, including to television networks, from Al Jazeera English and CCTV to the newspapers Financial Times, The Guardian, De Standard, BBC Mundo, BBC and BBC Scotland as well as to the Brazilian media. As a journalist, Matos worked for various press organizations in the areas of politics, culture and international news, including Folha de Sao Paulo, Globo Organisations, Reuters and UNESCO.

Qualifications

1. PhD in Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, United Kingdom, Jan 2007
2. MA Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, 1998 – 1999
3. Professional Certificate in Strategic Gender Planning, International Centre for Parliamentary Studies UK, United Kingdom

Postgraduate training

1. PG Certificate in Teaching in UK HE, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom, Jun 2011

Employment

1. Programme Director of the MAs in Media and Communications and International Communications and Development, City, University of London, Sep 2018 – present
2. Lecturer in Media and Sociology, City, University of London, Aug 2013 – Aug 2017
3. Part-time lecturer, University of Essex, Colchester, Jun 2012 – Jul 2013
4. LSE Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, May 2008 – Jun 2011
5. Visiting tutor, St Mary's University Twickenham London, Twickenham, Aug 2007 – Jun 2008
6. Visiting tutor, University of East London, London, Aug 2005 – Apr 2008
7. Visiting tutor, Goldsmiths University of London, London, Jan 2003 – Dec 2006

Awards

1. Learning and Enhancement Awards - City Student's Union (2017) Learning and Enhancement Awards
   Was shortlisted by City Sociology students for the Learning and Enhancement Teaching Awards in the category of assessment and feedback.
2. Camara Brasileira de Livro (2014) Premio Jabuti
   Winner of the 2014 Premio Jabuti prize in the communication category, for the book Media and politics in Latin America: globalization, democracy and identity (I.B. Tauris and Editora Civilizacao Brasileira)
   http://www.city.ac.uk/news/2014/nov/city-academic-takes-top-brazilian-literary-prize
3. ATWS Cecil B. Currey ATWS Book Awards - Best book on the Third World
   ATWS (Association of Third World Studies) - Cecil B. Currey ATWS Book-Length Publications Award
   Honorary mention - “Media and Politics in Latin America: globalization, gender politics and identity
   http://apps.gsw.edu/atws/assoc.htm

Languages

Portuguese and Spanish - Latin American.

Teaching

Undergraduate

- SG2051 News and society
- SG1005 Media history and Politics
- Sociology 3rd year project

Postgraduate

- SGM004 Political communication
- SGM223 Communication, culture and development
- SGM111 Sociology Dissertation

Featured publications

1. Matos, C. (2013). Midia e politica na America Latina: democracia, globalizacao e identidade. Editora Civilizacao Brasileira.
2. Matos, C. (2012). Media and politics in Latin America: globalization, democracy and identity. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-612-7.
3. Matos, C. (2009). Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-2351-5.
4. Matos, C. (2015). Media reform in Latin America revisited: where do we go from here? In Steemers, J. and Flew, T. (Eds.), Media Policy (pp. 156–172).
5. Matos, C. (2014). The Internet for the Public Interest: Overcoming the digital divide in Brazil. In Martens, C., McChesney, R. and Vivaveres, E. (Eds.), Regional responses to media regulation: the International Political Economy of Media in South America London: algrave Macmillan.
6. Matos, C. (2014). Public service broadcasting and media reform in Brazil in comparative perspective. In Guerrero, M.A. and Márquez-Ramírez, M. (Eds.), Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America ISBN 978-1-137-40904-1.
7. Matos, C. (2013). Media and globalization in Brazil. In Nederveen Pieterse, J. and Cardoso, A. (Eds.), Brazil Emerging: Inequality and Emancipation New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-83704-0.
8. Matos, C. (2012). Globalization and the mass media. Encyclopedia of Globalization Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
9. Matos, C. (2015). The crisis of public communications and quality journalism in comparative perspective. Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, Latin American Journalism edition.
10. Matos, C. (2009). Comparing Media Systems: the role of the public media in the digital age. The Global Studies Journal, 2(3).

Publications by category