About

Rosental Alves began his academic career in the United States in March 1996, after 27 years as a professional journalist, including seven years as a journalism professor in Brazil. He moved to Austin from Rio de Janeiro, where he was the managing editor and a member of the board of directors of Jornal do Brasil, one of the most important Brazilian newspapers, working there for 23 years. Alves was chosen in 1995 from approximately 200 candidates to be the first holder of the Knight Chair in International Journalism, created by a $1.5 million endowment from the James L. and John S. Knight Foundation. In 2002, Alves received a $2 million grant from the Knight Foundation to create the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, a project aimed at training journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean, which is based at the School of Journalism in Austin and reaches thousands of journalists throughout the hemisphere. He has extensive experience as a foreign correspondent, working in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States for Jornal do Brasil, and has been a pioneer in online journalism in Brazil, creating the first online, real-time finance news service in 1991 and launching the newspaper's online edition in 1994. At the University of Texas at Austin, Alves focuses on international reporting, journalism in Latin America, and Internet journalism, having created the first class on online journalism at UT in 1997-98. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and conducts workshops internationally to train journalists and journalism professors in digital media. Alves is also involved with several international organizations, serving on boards and advisory councils related to investigative journalism, media safety, and press freedom. He holds a B.A. in journalism from Rio de Janeiro Federal University and was the first Brazilian Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during 1987-88.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Public relations
• Law
• Economics
• Political economy
• Media studies
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Moving Barriers to Investigative Journalism in Latin America in Times of Instability and Professional Innovation

  2024-03-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Attacks Against Journalists in Brazil: Catalyzing Effects and Resilience During Jair Bolsonaro’s Government

  The International Journal of Press/Politics · 2023 · 15 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Public relations

  Attacks on journalists have become a growing concern in democracies around the world. Past scholarship suggests that such attacks could lead to a chilling effect of journalists self-censoring their reporting. However, there is limited empirical work that substantiates the effects of attacks on journalists. To empirically test the existence of chilling effects, this mixed-methods study uses the conditions of journalism under Jair Bolsonaro’s government in Brazil as an exploratory case study. We investigate how attacks ( N = 901) and propaganda messages ( N = 518,853) impacted news coverage ( N = 20,998) in the first two years of Bolsonaro’s government, based on time series analysis and in-depth interviews with journalists ( N = 18). Our results suggest that, despite the increase in government attacks, Brazilian journalists do not exhibit chilling effects; instead, they display what we call catalyzing effects. Our time series results showed that an increase in state propaganda leads to an increase in news coverage. Furthermore, our qualitative data affirms the concept of catalyzing effects. Findings from the interviews suggest that catalyzing effects operate as a form of resilience among journalists. Catalyzing effects do not necessarily manifest as more coverage, but as persistent coverage despite ongoing criticisms and threats (both social and physical). Our findings offer a path forward, highlighting the importance of bringing the discussion about violence and attacks against journalists back to the community of journalists experiencing this hostility. Network support, journalists said, has been crucial, which points to the need for a solidarity infrastructure that supports journalists’ constructive role in society.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spatial dimensions within hierarchy of influences: How re-conceived notions of space in networked societies impact Latin American journalists

  International Communication Gazette · 2022-10-13 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  Local, national, regional and global networks of power intersect in this digital era, raising questions of how re-conceived notions of space in networked societies impact journalism. This study surveyed journalists ( n = 1094) from 20 Latin American countries to explore how spatial dimensions are influencing how journalists’ roles are perceived in the region, within the hierarchy of influences model. It identified the disseminator/informational role – a role traditionally less common among journalists in Latin America – as most impacted by the spatial shifts at the organizational level (geographic scope), social-institutional level (geo-cultural regions) and social systems level (social network structures). As journalists’ work becomes connected with extra-national networks, their perceptions of roles shift, with relevant consequences for journalistic practices.

  PublisherDOI

• Moving Barriers to Investigative Journalism in Latin America in Times of Instability and Professional Innovation

  Journalism Practice · 2022 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Latin American journalism has experienced recent transitions marked by digital affordances, including a growth of investigative journalism. The region has also experienced more political and economic instability, giving rise to a wave of threats and harassment against journalists. This repeated cross-sectional study analyzes the changing perceptions of threats and attacks as barriers to investigative journalism, through surveys of journalists from 20 Latin American countries conducted in 2013 and 2017. It performs intra-regional comparison utilizing the hierarchy of influences model. It found that women and those with fewer years of working experience (individual characteristics) were increasingly likely to perceive threats and attacks as a main barrier to investigative journalism. It also found that those working for digital platforms and working more independently (organizational characteristics) were also increasingly likely to perceive threats and attacks as major barriers.

  PublisherDOI

• Defining Journalism Innovation in Latin America: Exploration Into Perceptions Among Educators, Students, and Journalists

  Journalism & Mass Communication Educator · 2020 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Public relations

  Innovation is driving major changes in journalism globally. Understanding how journalism educators, students, and journalists perceive of innovation—in themselves and their organizations—is another layer by which to understand how the overall industry is evolving. This study explores the perceptions of innovation through an international survey ( N = 1,543) of journalism educators, students, and journalists from Latin America. Findings show that journalists perceive themselves as more innovative than those in the academy. A significant gap appears between the academy and newsroom of how innovation is being defined and what it means to be innovative, which poses implications for the future of journalism students and journalists alike.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluation process in the application of case teaching method in management education: A study in the perception of professors from Brazilian universities : 12th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education and 17th International Conference on Active Learning in Engineering Education, PAEE/ALE 2020

  Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) · 2018-01-05

  other

  Active methodologies allow the use of evaluation formats that cover weaknesses of current evaluation methods (Mansur & Alves, 2018). As for teaching cases, Dalfovo (2013) and Ribeiro (2016) discuss the lack of systematic assessment. The work aims to understand the evaluation process in the application of the case method in management courses at Brazilian universities, with specific objectives: to describe the planning process in the application of learning evaluation; investigate the adoption of instruments and strategies used in case evaluation for teaching; identify the monitoring adopted in the evaluation and identify a suggestion for improvement from the data of the evaluation carried out with the students. This is a multiple and exploratory case study. A semi-structured interview script was applied with management professors from two Brazilian universities. The data were discussed from the qualitative approach adopting content analysis. The results of the research are similar to the studies on evaluation in teaching methods, although none of them is the method of the case. All teachers surveyed carry out planning, corroborating the studies by Silva, Santos & Paixão (2014). Some teachers value the moment of the evaluation, elaborating the teaching plan (Tormena & Figueiredo, 2010). Otherwise, the group plans to value the forms of evaluation adopted (Fernandes & Fialho, 2012). Regarding assessment instruments (Depresbiteris & Tavares, 2009), most teachers use student observation. In the monitoring of the evaluation, a large part of it does so through group discussions (Depresbiteris & Tavares, 2017). With the results of the evaluation, most teachers perceive the need for the student to know the theory to associate the content with the resolution of the case (Miranda, 2008). The findings of the work are the different ways of planning, the observation of groups as an assessment tool, as well as the follow-up of discussions, based on these observations and the importance of theory for solving the case. © 2020 University of Minho. All rights reserved.

  Publisher

• Innovación y sostenibilidad: una relación examinada en organizaciones periodísticas emprendedoras de América Latina

  Cuadernos info · 2018-01-01 · 17 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Este estudio investiga cómo las organizaciones emprendedoras de noticias perciben las innovaciones y la sustentabilidad respecto de las operaciones de sus organizaciones. El estudio se basa en una serie de grupos focales en línea, realizados entre junio y julio de 2015, en los que participaron 16 organizaciones emprendedoras de Latinoamérica. Se identificó que la relación entre innovación y sustentabilidad es compleja, pero fundamental: para los participantes, la innovación es tanto un producto originado por estas organizaciones como un flujo de trabajo periodístico en sí mismo. Las implicancias de estos hallazgos se discuten en el contexto de la educación periodística y de la profesión.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ethical perspectives in Latin America’s journalism community: A comparative analysis of acceptance of controversial practice for investigative reporting

  International Communication Gazette · 2017-01-24 · 10 citations

  articleSenior author

  Latin Americans are living in an unprecedented era of democracy while experiencing a spike in investigative journalism production. Investigative journalism holds its own conundrums of ethical decision-making related to techniques used and consequences of its content. This study analyzes ethical interpretations in the region’s investigative journalism community through a comparative analysis based on a survey conducted with journalists, journalism educators, and students from 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Our findings highlight the prevalence of a deontological perspective to ethics, with the majority of the respondents rejecting the use of soft-lies as investigative techniques. The study found, however, variability in ethical perspective within Latin America and Caribbean’s geo-cultural regions, with Central America and the Caribbean region leading in opposition and Brazil and the Southern Cone indicating more lenience toward controversial practices. When it comes to source-related controversial techniques, the journalism community in the region overwhelmingly rejects such practices.

  PublisherDOI

• Latin American Investigative Journalism Education: Learning Practices, Learning Gaps

  Journalism & Mass Communication Educator · 2017-06-06 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  This study seeks to examine the state of investigative journalism practices used in higher education in Latin America. Using a meta-theoretical framework called the Community of Practice (CoP), this study seeks to identify whether a particular learning practice exists in this region. Based on an online survey conducted on Latin American educators and students, several gaps exist between them on the techniques and resources used to learn about investigative journalism. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the CoP approach as well as their impact on the profession and investigative journalism education in the region.

  PublisherDOI

• Sharing the Stage

  Journalism Practice · 2016-03-04 · 38 citations

  articleSenior author

  Despite the proliferation of research on social media and journalism, only a few studies have analyzed how journalists in Latin America embrace the affordances of social platforms for journalism practice. Based on a survey of 877 Latin American reporters, this article examines the platforms journalists use and how they use them. The broad finding is that, despite the great popularity of Facebook in the region, Twitter is the most important platform for daily newsgathering and journalistic work. Journalists turn to Twitter to find sources and stories, showing an important openness to participatory journalism. Yet, they mistrust information provided from political sources. Our findings show that different regions in Latin America work with social media in different ways, and local journalistic cultures have an impact on these adoptions, especially in the case of Brazil. Further research and implications for the field are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce

  8 shared

• Amy Schmitz Weiss

  8 shared

• Magdalena Saldaña

  3 shared

• Summer Harlow

  2 shared

• Lourdes Cueva Chacón

  2 shared

• Mark Tremayne

  The University of Texas at Arlington

  2 shared

• Anita Varma

  1 shared

• Josephine Lukito

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Knight Chair in International Journalism (1995)
• Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (2002)
• Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University (1987-88)