Leonardo Ferreira, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Electronic Media, Broadcast Journalism, and Media Management

A journalist from the Universidad Externado de Colombia and graduate of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Law School, Dr. Leonardo Ferreira, current Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies of the School of Communication at the University of Miami, is a specialist in the study of Latin American media history, policy, and social development.

Born in Bogota, Ferreira initiated his career as a field reporter in the daily news program Noticiero TV Mundo-Channel 7. In the United States, he received his Ph. D degree in Mass Media from Michigan State University, and was awarded both an Excellence–in-Teaching Citation from the MSU Office of the Provost and a Martin Luther King, Jr.-César Chávez-Rosa Park Fellowship by the Michigan Department of Education. Under the mentorship of professors Mary A. Gardner, Joseph D. Straubhaar, and Bella Mody, Ferreira advanced his graduate studies leading to thesis and dissertation works on the adoption of satellite communication in the Americas.

After joining the University of Miami, Dr. Ferreira became a contributor of BBC-Mundo, making additional appearances in news media such as the dailies O’Globo, The Miami Herald, and Ecuador’s El Comercio as well as in Radio Catalunya, the Voice of America, WLRN-Miami, Univision, Telemundo, Oppenheimer Presenta-Venevision International, A Mano Limpia-Channel 41, the Colombian Radio Caracol and RCN networks, and the Andean Radio Majestad and Radio San Gabriel, among others. He has worked in academic projects with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Fleischman & Hillard Inc., the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), the Grupo de Diarios America (GDA), the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the International Center of Higher Communication Studies (CIESPAL), the U.S. Department of State, and the Dominican Republic’s Global Democracy and Development Foundation (FUNGLODE).

His scholarly research has been published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Journalism Studies, Latin American Perspectives, the Florida Communication Journal, World Communication, Hemisphere, and the FELAFACS’s Revista Dialogos de la Comunicacion, along with CIESPAL’s Latin American communication magazine Chasqui, the Revista Universitaria de Publicidad y Relaciones Publicas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), the Revista Colombiana de Telecomunicaciones (RTC), and the online Inter Forum Magazine. Chapters and other essays have also appeared in Felipe Korzenny and Stella Ting-Toomey’s Effects of the media across cultures (Sage, 1992), John C. Merrill’s Global journalism (Longman, 1995), Derek Jones’ Censorship: A world encyclopedia (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), Donald H. Johnston’s Encyclopedia of international media and communications (Academic Press, 2003), and Gary Hoppenstand and John F. Bratzel’s The Greenwood encyclopedia of world popular culture (Greenwood Press, 2007). Professor Ferreira is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the International Communication Association (ICA), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the Latin American Federation of Schools of Communication (FELAFACS), and has been guest speaker at universities in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and the United States.

His book, Centuries of silence: The story of Latin American journalism (Praeger, 2006), is “probably the most detailed account of the Latin American mass media ever published in English,” according to the magazine Choice of the American Library Association (May 2007), receiving favorable reviews in academic periodicals such as American Journalism, Communication Booknotes Quarterly, Journalism History, and Reference & Research Book News. This book has been endorsed by Latin American communication research pioneer Dr. Luis Ramiro Beltrán, first recipient of the McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Award. In 2007, Beltran invited Ferreira to La Paz, Bolivia, for an interdisciplinary research group interested in rescuing the roots of pre-Columbian and early colonial communication in the Western Hemisphere.

Dr. Ferreira’s second book, Frames of freedom: Press rules and jurisprudence in the Americas (1997-2007), with the Inter American Press Association, will be published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese in mid-2008. This volume emerged from press law seminars at the IAPA and policy courses taught in the Spanish Language journalism master’s program at the UM School of Communication. A documentary, entitled Visualizing an old struggle: Ten days with Indigenous media leaders in Bolivia, is also expected to be released in 2008. The film is being produced by Professor Sanjeev Chatterjee, director of the University of Miami Knight Center for International Media.

In recent months, President Leonel Fernandez and the First Lady, Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernandez (winner of the ITU World Information Society Award), invited professor Ferreira to apply his studies using their country’s network of Community Technological Centers (CTCs). He will help build an autonomous, inclusive, and equitable multimedia system serving impoverished rural inhabitants, including a program for would-be reporters in the DR-Haitian border and elsewhere. This four-year plan is a pilot study intended to become a national, and hopefully, a regional development media model across the Caribbean basin.

Professor Ferreira is a scholar committed to raising silenced voices throughout the Americas, namely those of indigenous, Latino, Afro-Latino, Hispanic women and other underrepresented populations.

For reviews about Centuries of silence: the story of Latin American journalism, please go to http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C8397.aspx

Leonardo Ferreira
School of Communication
Frances L. Wolfson Building 4003
5100 Brunson Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146
Phone: (305) 284-3180
Fax: (305) 284-3648
E-mail: lferreira@miami.edu