Heloiza Golbspan Herscovitz
Heloiza Golbspan Herscovitz is a trilingual (English, Portuguese, Spanish) journalist that joined the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication at California State University, Long Beach in 2006. She is currently an associate professor. Heloiza Herscovitz has transnational academic experience. Before coming to CSULB, she taught at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of Florida International University, in Miami, where she coordinated the Spanish-Language Master’s in Investigative Journalism between 2000 and 2003, besides teaching journalism courses in English. While working at FIU, she trained Mexican journalists on newsgathering techniques at the Instituto Tecnologico of Monterrey. In Brazil, her native country, she taught Journalism and Public Relations at Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-RS) in the early 1990s, and at Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) between 2003 and 2006. She also taught Portuguese at the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Miami while writing her dissertation.
A veteran journalist with extensive experience as a reporter and editor, Heloiza Herscovitz started in radio as a news writer while still in college; she moved on to television as a news writer and producer, and soon fell in love with print journalism, which she practiced for most of her professional career before embracing the academia. She worked for several publications in her birth country, including the daily Brazilian newspapers O Estado de S. Paulo, Gazeta Mercantil and Zero Hora, as well as the monthly magazine Nova, the Portuguese version of Cosmopolitan. In addition, she worked at the São Paulo branch of Ogilvy & Mather International Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations Inc. as a press consultant for multinational clients operating in Brazil. Her experience in Public Relations led her to create her own PR agency in Southern Brazil while lecturing at Pontifical Catholic University.
Her desire to pursue an academic path grew with time. First, a scholarship from Inter American Press Association (SIP-IAPA) brought her to the University of Montevallo, Ala. where she earned an M.A. in Mass Communication in the mid-1980s. Then, in the mid- 1990s, she became a Fulbright scholar at the University of Florida, where she earned her Ph.D. in Mass Communication in 2000. Her dissertation focused on professional differences and similarities among American, French and Brazilian journalists. Since then, media sociology along with comparative mass media systems, with a focus on Latin American journalism, and international communication in general have been her major research interests. Research methods are also an important area of interest with a focus on surveys and content analysis/framing. A few years ago, she published a book chapter on how to do content analysis — the first in Brazil. More recently, literary journalism, an old passion from her years as a newspaper journalist, has become a focus point of her teaching and research portfolio.
Heloiza Herscovitz has published several articles and book chapters and presented papers at many national and international conferences. In 2012, she published a book chapter on Brazilian journalists in the book The Global Journalist in the 21st Century (Routledge Communication Series) edited by David Weaver and Lars Willnat. Her article “Online Coverage of the 2010 Brazilian Presidential Elections: framing power and professional ideology,” was published by the European academic journalCommunication Studies in December 2012.
She teaches courses in media writing, global news media, mass communication theories, research methods, minorities and the media, and literary journalism. Furthermore, Heloiza Herscovitz has been intensively involved with the International Communication Division (ICD) of AEJMC (Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication). She is the ICD head for 2012-2013, after served as the division’s vice-head in 2011-2012 and as research chair in 2010-2011. She is also a member of the Brazilian Association of Journalism Researchers, SBPjor. She has served as moderator and discussant at the AEJMC annual conferences and is a board member of international journals dedicated to mass communication and Jewish studies. In addition, she has served as a consultant on press freedom in South American countries for Freedom House.
Office Location: SSPA-009
Phone: 562-985-5667
E-mail: heloiza.herscovitz@csulb.edu
Office Hours and Schedule for Spring 2013: Prof. Herscovitz is on sabbatical until Fall 2013 working on her new research project “Media, Democracy and the State: Brazil’s Daily Battlefield.” This project was selected for one of the two $4,500 AEJMC Senior Scholar Research Grants for 2013. In addition, she was invited to produce a chapter on Latin American Journalism for the 9th edition of the book The World News Prism by William A. Hachten and James F. Scotton.
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