POSTPONED: Media, Politics, and Emergency Communication in Puerto Rico

Oct. 7 update: Due to weather conditions, our speaker scheduled to present during our weekly lunchtime lecture, Dr. Federico Subervi, is unable to join us tomorrow @ Noon (Tuesday, October 8th).  We are discussing possible future dates for this talk and will announce updates as soon as they are available.

media release: Please join UW Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program. The events are free and open to the public.

Room 206 Ingraham Hall - 1155 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706. Register for Zoom option.

About the presentation: The presentation will offer an overview of the recently published book Comunicación Política en Puerto Rico: Primera antología de ensayos, investigaciones empíricas y críticas, which has chapters by 14 authors and co-authors, and was co-edited by Federico Subervi Vélez and Ángel Israel Rivera Ortiz. This is the very first book in Puerto Rico fully dedicated to political communication on the Island and includes historical essays, empirical research and critical essays about, among other topics, cyber-propaganda and nefarious political trolling. The presentation will also highlight key findings of Subervi Vélez’s two recent emergency communication research projects in Puerto Rico. One of the studies focused on Puerto Rican media and government officials; the other study assessed emergency communication at the municipal level in six coastal and six mountainous municipalities. The projects were made possible thanks to grants from the Natural Hazards Center with funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About the presenter: Long after graduating from UW, Federico Subervi-Vélez PhD’84, originally from Puerto Rico, has continued numerous research, publishing, teaching, mentoring and community service endeavors. He has held academic posts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, and Kent State University, and was Visiting Leverhulme Professor at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Subervi-Vélez has also been Fulbright Scholar in Brazil and Chile, and visiting professor and lectured at universities in various countries including Puerto Rico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia. From his home in Austin, Texas, he continues his work as Co-editor in Chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Communication, Race and Ethnicity. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters and reports, he is the editor and co-author of four books: Comunicación Política en Puerto Rico: Primera antología de ensayos, investigaciones y críticas (Editores Colina 787, 2024); Para Entender los Medios de Comunicación de Puerto Rico: Periodismo en entornos coloniales y en tiempos de crisis (Ediciones Filos, 2022); The News Media in Puerto Rico: Journalism in Colonial Settings and in Times of Crises (Routledge, 2021) and The Mass Media and Latino Politics: Studies of U.S. media coverage, campaign strategies and survey research: 1984-2004 (Routledge, 2008). As Honorary Associate/Fellow of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program UW-Madison, he has continued conducting research, publishing, and engaging in community service. His most recent research was based on two studies of risk and communication in Puerto Rico, projects administered by the Natural Hazards Center with funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Based on his lifelong work on diversity research and teaching, in 2012 the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication honored him with the Lionel L. Barrow, Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity Research and Education. And in 2017, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists also recognized his teaching, research and community service by inducting him into the organization’s Hall of Fame.