Biography

Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce, assistant professor, teaches Media Effects, Digital Journalism and Journalism in Latin America in the Journalism Division. Her research focuses on international communication and Latin American communication, political communication and public opinion, journalist’s roles and digital news and research methods.

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she worked for two major public opinion research companies in that city, analyzing local, national and international studies in the political and social arenas. She has also worked as an online journalist covering Brazilian contemporary art and soccer. It was also in São Paulo where she received her BS in Social Communication with emphasis in Journalism from Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC-SP, 2000).

In August 2004, she received her MA in Journalism from the University of Texas in Austin, with a thesis on crime coverage of Brazilian media. She then received her Ph.D. in Journalism from UT-Austin in December 2009, with a dissertation on the consensus building effects of transnational news media.

Her work has been published in the journals Journalism, Brazilian Journalism Research, Revista Logos: Comunicação e Universidade and Media Tenor Forschungsbericht. She has also contributed with chapters in the book Women, Men, and News: Divided and Disconnected in the News Media Landscape and the first and second editions of Research Methods in Communication.

Vanessa is married to journalist Matt Joyce, and together they work on their most challenging and exciting research project of 2010: their daughter Corina. She’s very proud of her coffee-making skills, and likes to hike, stroll and listen to live music whenever possible.