Member of the Graduate Faculty | Director, Journalism | Professor, Journalism
Jessica Retis, Ph.D. Professor. School of Journalism Director. Master’s Program in Bilingual Journalism CUES Distinguished Fellow The University of Arizona Academic Profiles: UA website: journalism.arizona.edu/people/jessica-retis ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0665-9837 Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?user=Hr72AxcAAAAJ&hl=en Professional Profiles: Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaretis/ Twitter: @jretis Dr. Jessica Retis is Professor, Director of the Master in Bilingual Journalism and CUES Distinguished Fellow. She holds a Major in Communications (University of Lima, Peru), a Masters in Latin American Studies (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and a PhD in Contemporary Latin America (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain). Prior to entering academia, Retis worked for more than two decades as a journalist in Peru, Mexico and Spain in various print and broadcast media outlets. She has three decades of teaching experience in various universities in the United States, Spain and Mexico. Her international academic training has led her to become a recognized scholar in the U.S. and abroad. Professor Retis joined UArizona in 2019 to lead the Bilingual Program in the School of Journalism. That year she was awarded the Provost Investment Fund (PIF) to launch a New Master's Program in Bilingual Journalism, Cultural Competence and Innovation. In 2021 she was awarded the title of Center for University Education Scholarship, CUES Distinguished Fellow for her research project “Bilingual Journalism Education in the United States: Development, Implementation and Assessment.” Due to her interdisciplinary work, Dr. Retis holds a dual courtesy appointment with the UA Center for Latin American Studies Department and the Graduate Program in Human Rights Practice. Before joining the University of Arizona, she worked for a decade at California State University Northridge (CSUN) where she taught a wide range of courses from lecture to skills classes at undergraduate and graduate levels, both in English and Spanish. Her innovative pedagogies have been recognized with several awards such as the State-level CSU Distinguished Teaching Award (2019), and the campus recognition CSUN’s Polished Apple Award (awarded twice, in 2009 and 2013). For many years she has trained bilingual journalists currently working in various newsrooms in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Retis maintains an active research agenda. For the last two decades, she has studied international migrations, transnational communities and the news media in Europe (Spain and UK), North America (United States), Asia (Japan), and Latin America (Brazil and Peru). She places her findings within a larger theoretical, intersectional and interdisciplinary framework, shedding light in particular on issues of territoriality, hybridization and heterogeneity; the last introducing issues of gender, race and class. Her areas of research include Latin America, international migration, diasporas and transnational communities; cultural industries; ethnic media; diversity and the media; Latino media in Europe, North America and Asia; bilingual journalism, journalism studies, and journalism education. Recent books: Reporting on Latin/a/x Communities: A Guide for Journalists (Routledge, 2022), Narratives of Migration, Relocation and Belonging: Latin Americans in London (Palgrave, 2020), The Handbook of Diasporas, Media and Culture (Willey, 2019). Recent book chapters: “Migrations and the Media between Asia and Latin America: Japanese-Brazilians in Tokyo and São Paulo” (Sage, 2019), “Hashtag Jóvenes Latinos: Challenges and opportunities of teaching civic advocacy journalism in ‘glocal’ contexts” (Peter Lang, 2018), “The transnational restructuring of communication and consumption practices. Latinos in the urban settings of global cities” (Routledge, 2017). Recent academic journal articles: Mapping digital-native US Latinx news: Beyond geographical boundaries, language barriers, and hyper-fragmentation of audiences, Migration Journalism: Production and consumption of narratives about mobility in uncertain times and digital platforms era (ISOJ, 2021). Recent reports: Hispanic Media Today. Serving Bilingual and Bicultural Audiences in the Digital Age (Democracy Fund, 2019), La circulación de la cultura en español en las ciudades globales de los Estados Unidos: Los Ángeles, Nueva York, Miami (Hispanic Cultural Circuits in Urban Context of Global Cities: Los Angeles, New York, Miami) (RIE, 2019), and Los Latinos y las industrias culturales en español en Estados Unidos (Latinos and Spanish-language Cultural Industries in the U.S.) (RIE, 2015). Dr. Retis serves as Co-Chair of the Diaspora and the Media Working Group at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and Co-Chair of the Latino/a Studies Section at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). She is the Academic At-large Officer at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and the Vice President of the Binational Association for Schools of Communication (BINACOM). She advises the NAHJ Student Chapter at UArizona.