Maria José Brites

Maria José Brites is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at Lusófona University. She is the Vice-President of the Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (CICANT – DOI: 10.54499/UIDB/05260/2020), the coordinator of the MeLCi Lab - Media Literacy and Civic Cultures Lab and the Vice-Coordinator of the Publics and Audiences Section of the Portuguese Association for Communication (SOPCOM). She is also the Vice-Chair of the Audience and Reception Studies Section (ARS) of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). In 2025, she was appointed as the scientific advisor to the National Media Literacy Plan, which is administered and coordinated by #PortugalMediaLab. She is also the Principal Investigator of the Youth, News and Digital Citizenship – YouNDigital research project (PTDC/COM-OUT/0243/2021). She coordinates the Master's Degree in Media and Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship at Lusófona University. She was the PI of the Social Media Resilience Toolkit (SMaRT-EU) project (co-financed by the European Commission/LC-01563446), the Dici-Educa project (co-financed by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian/Academias do Conhecimento and the Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services), and the Portuguese coordinator of the European Media in Action (MIA) project (LC-00644630; http://mediainaction.eu) and the RadioActive Europe project (531245-LLP-1-2012-1-UK-KA3-KA3; http://radioactive101.eu). Within the MIA project, she coordinated a certified 50-hour training workshop for teachers entitled 'Media Education and Citizenship: How to Enhance the Use of Digital in Schools), which has so far been delivered in four editions. Highlights of the RadioActive Europe project (2013–14) include the creation of an online radio station (RadioActive101), coordination of workshops with young people and social workers, and the production of over 30 radio shows by young participants aged 12–21 and over 15 publications. While serving as the Portuguese coordinator of RadioActive Europe, Maria José Brites was awarded the Inclusion and Digital Citizenship Prize in recognition of the project's good practices and implementation. She was also distinguished with the Research Prize in 2017, 2020 and 2023, as well as the Gold Medal of Academic Value in 2019, both from Lusófona University. Her research interests include youth journalism and participation, audience and reception studies, news and civic literacy, participatory methodologies, civic cultures and media resistance. She has conducted extensive research, coordination and publication in these fields, including six edited books, seven special issues and over 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Youth Studies, Media, Culture & Society, Cultura y Educación/Culture and Education, the International Journal of Inclusive Education and Participations: International Journal of Audience Research, Medijske studije/Media Studies, JOCAM and Children & Society), as well as over 30 book chapters (e.g. for publishers such as Routledge, Springer and Palgrave), and numerous other publications. She has worked as a journalist in Portugal (press card 3182). She is a certified trainer accredited by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, the Portuguese Union of Journalists and the National Scientific-Pedagogical Council of Continuous Education, the body responsible for teacher training in Portugal. She has coordinated and delivered over 20 training courses and workshops on journalism, media education, digital citizenship, participation and media practices. She has successfully trained teachers, other educators, young people and journalists. Main research areas: Youth and journalism, audience studies, critical literacies, digital citizenship, participatory research and media and ageing studies.