Hello!
My name is Michele F. Ferris Dobles, and I am a professor and researcher at the University of Costa Rica, Central America. I obtained my Ph.D. at the Communication Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship.
I am a media and communication researcher, a documentary filmmaker, and a facilitator of collaborative communication projects with communities and social organizations.
My dissertation research focuses on the interconnections between communication technologies, media infrastructures, and human mobility. Specifically, by examining the uses, meanings, and rituals of communication that migrants and people in transit experience through the use of media technology.
I am interested in how media technology enables the existence of social networks, relationships, and practices across time, space, and national borders.
I won two awards with my dissertation:
My research interests are located in the intersection of communication and media research, science and technology studies, and the social sciences. I study the interconnections between communication technologies, inter-personal communication, social organization, activism, narratives, and media infrastructure(s).
My research aims to address the political and cultural dimensions of media technology and the relation between social inequalities and technological usage and design. I am also interested in communication for social change and participatory communication projects.
Check out my blog contribution for MIT’s: Global Media, Technologies & Cultures Lab! I had the privilege to learn from and work with Professor Lisa Parks from MIT on this blog post 🙂 —Central American Migration and Communication Technologies: A Critical Approach to Network Infrastructures and Inequalities
Also, look at my contribution to the Minority Rights Report. I wrote a chapter on Technology and Migration for the Minority and Indigenous Trends Report 2020: a Focus on Technology. Read the report HERE
Michele Ferris Dobles 