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Feature Interview with ICD Member: Heloiza Herscovitz, Membership Chair
How long have you been a member of ICD? How long have you served in a chair capacity of ICD?
How long have you served in a chair capacity of ICD?
I have been a member since the early 1990s, when I was a graduate student at University of Florida. Since August of 2007.
What aspects of international communication interest you the most?
I am interested in comparative mass media systems, news flow, media stereotypes, Latin American mass media and newsroom sociology.
What are your current research projects and pursuits?
I am currently working on a study about Brazilian major news portals. I am examining how they attract online users by exploring the following categories: newsworthiness of news content, content diversity, interactivity with users, multimedia applications and content providers. Here is an abstract: A content analysis will indicate whether gatekeepers at these major Brazilian portals supply the country's Internet users with original and pluralistic online editorial content that contribute to the marketplace of ideas. In addition, the study will analyze trends towards homogeneity and standardization in Brazilian online information production and distribution. It should point out key defining elements of the news model those media companies pursue in Brazil, a country that has the largest online population of Latin America and, at the same time, faces a dramatic digital divide, along with stratified online access, disparate telecommunication infrastructures and unequal educational opportunities. The study's theoretical framework draws from a reframed form of the gatekeeping model adapted to online journalism. Expected outcomes include greater similarities among top news stories in all media portals and the sources they employ, limited interactivity and multimedia applications as well as a focus on breaking news, with news analysis and interpretation confined to blogs.
What international communication resources on the Internet do you use often that you would like to share with your ICD members?
The Internet in many ways has replaced the physical libraries. I do great part of my research using the Internet. Most libraries have the most important journals online. However, I still buy books and will always do so. In addition, I incorporate many Internet resources in my courses. Currently I teach Global News and Introduction to Mass Communication at Cal State Journalism Department. In my classes I show Youtube videos, programs produced by Frontline, PBS podcasts, audio slide shows from the New York Times, blogs, online video stories produced by independent media centers and gatewatchers, and all kinds of multimedia applications that can help students to understand our current media environment.
What five trends do you see occurring in international communication scholarship today?
1. Young scholars interested in reviewing traditional theories in the light of new media. We have done a lot of research using new media but many studies use old frameworks that need to be updated. It seems that this is a good time for it.
2. The Internet has helped scholars to be instantly familiar with what other peers are doing on the other side of the world. Just today, I read two studies about gatekeeping and gatewatching, one published in a journal in Netherlands and the other one in Australia. That would have been impossible not long ago.
3. Access to other people's work creates new opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration
4. AEJMC looks a bit more international now, I saw many international faces at the last conference in Washington, but they were mostly people doing their PhDs in the U.S. Somehow we need to encourage international scholars to be more active at AEJ, as ICA and IAMCR have done for a long time.
Any other comments you would like to add?
Just that I AEJMC has been very important to my academic education. I first heard of it in the early 1990s, when I moved from Brazil to the U.S. to pursue my doctoral degree with a Fulbright scholarship. I was too scared to say anything at the first conference I went. I remember when I saw for the first time in person those scholars that I used to read and could not believe that they would shake hands with me and even remember me the following day. My mentor was Michael Salwen, of University of Miami, who passed away about a year ago. He was very active at AEJ for many years. Salwen showed me the importance of becoming a trained scholar and encouraged me to pursue my academic interests in the U.S... I hope I can become a mentor to graduate students, in special the international ones, through AEJMC.
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