Biography

Rita Basílio de Simões is Associate Professor (with Habilitation) in Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra (FLUC), where she is a member of the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information and coordinates the Communication Section. She holds a PhD in Communication Sciences, an MA in Communication and Journalism, and a BA in Journalism from the University of Coimbra. She also completed a postgraduate degree in Media Law at the Institute for Legal Studies in Communication, Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra. She is an Integrated Researcher at the Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) and a member of the Standing Committee of its Scientific Board. She is a Collaborating Researcher at the Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Universidade de Coimbra (CEIS20) and at ICNOVA - Instituto de Comunicação da NOVA, and serves on the governing board of the Associação Portuguesa de Estudos Sobre as Mulheres (APEM). Between 2019 and 2026, she coordinated the Gender and Sexualities Working Group of the Associação Portuguesa de Ciências da Comunicação (SOPCOM). Her research lies at the intersection of communication, media, gender, and digital technologies, adopting an interdisciplinary framework that brings together sociology of journalism, feminist and gender studies of the public sphere, critical internet studies, criminology, and media regulation. Her work focuses particularly on: Media representations and media production, Gender, violence, and online hate speech, Crime, justice, and the public sphere, Technology-facilitated violence, and Digital platforms and media regulation. Since 2019, she has been the national coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) - Who Makes the News? She is a researcher in the project UnCover - Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape (2022.03964.PTDC | 2023-2026), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and hosted at CES. She previously served as Principal Investigator of the project Online Violence Against Women: Preventing and Combating Misogyny and Digital Violence in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic (Gender Research4Covid-19 - FCT Project 58) and as Co-Principal Investigator of MyGender - Mediated Practices of Young Adults: Promoting Gender Justice In and Through Mobile Applications (PTDC/COM-CSS/5947/2020 | 2021-2024), both funded by FCT and developed at FLUC. Between 2024 and 2025, she was a member of the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe on technology-facilitated violence against women and girls.