Biography

Aida Barrera was a Research Assistant Professor of Communications and an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before retiring in the 1999-2000 academic year. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her primary areas of interest include: Multicultural communications; Latino media, history, and culture; the creation of a communications ethic, mythology, and aesthetic; popular culture. Professor Barrera has a long history as a creator and producer-director of television and radio programming focusing attention on American minority populations, with a special emphasis on U.S. Latinos. Barrera has held teaching, consulting, and research appointments at the University of Texas-Austin, Princeton University, Colorado College, and the University of Colorado, as well as with universities and government and educational agencies in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela. Her national network productions have won numerous awards, including two Gold Awards from the New York International Film Festival, two Achievements in Television from Action for Children's Television, the PBS Selection at Germany's Prix Jeunesse Festival, and Exceptional Achievement from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, two Excellence Citations from the Ohio State Awards, and the UNICEF Award from the Japan Prize Festival. Barrera is currently launching a project on US Latino media with research sites in San Antonio, Albuquerque, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, El Paso, New York, and Juarez and Monterey in northern Mexico. The study investigates issues concerning media culture, the causal and conceptual relationships between content and audience use, and the consumption of this content.