FEMICOM: female roles in communication
FEMICOM, Analysis of Female’s Roles in Communication Research, is an initiative to investigate and disseminate the presences and absences that women have had in this field of study.
FEMICOM: female roles in communication
FEMICOM, Analysis of Female’s Roles in Communication Research, is an initiative to investigate and disseminate the presences and absences that women have had in this field of study.
Researchers in communication
FEMICOM is launched from the Department of Communication (Faculty of Communication and Documentation) at the University of Murcia, thanks to the project “Feminising Communication Sciences: Memory and Contributions of Women Researchers”, funded by the 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators from the BBVA Foundation. We are currently continuing this line of work through two R&D projects funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (ref. PID2021-123143NB-I00, titled “FEMICOMI: Analysis of Female Roles in Communication Research in Ibero-America”) and the Fundación Séneca (ref. 22631/PI/24, titled “FEMIDOCOM: Research on Female Roles in the Theoretical Teaching of Communication: Approaches and Proposals (2014–2024)”).
In order to analyse the configuration of the communication field from a gender perspective, we first carried out a historiographical review of the most prominent theorists of the first generation (1930s–1960s). We then conducted in-depth interviews with second-generation researchers (1960s–1990s) from France, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Brazil, whose work has had a major global influence.
We are currently continuing this line of work by examining the roles and contributions of Ibero-American women through both theoretical and empirical approaches. These include citation-pattern analysis, expert consultation using the Delphi method, and in-depth interviews with leading researchers from Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile.
From this research, we have produced a series of mini-documentaries to promote the role of women in science. The book Voces silenciadas, voces escuchadas (Tirant Lo Blanch, 2025) brings together our main findings. We continue working in this direction, aiming to analyse more women researchers from different geographical and academic settings and, through this, to promote the re-signification of science and our ways of understanding communication.
Key issues
Gender and science
Gender has been and is a constitutive force in the construction of science.
Matilda effect
Women's voices and contributions have tended to be erased and/or invisibilized in communication research.
Importance of subjectivity
Researchers' experiences are relevant and a key source of knowledge for science.
analyzed
mini-documentaries
