Andrea Medrado is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Media and Communication of the University of Westminster. She is also the Course Leader for the BA Digital Media and the leader for the Cultural Identities and Social Change theme at the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). Her research focuses on digital media activism and artivism as tools for social change in the Global South and on creative and participatory approaches to analysing marginalised communities’ information security needs and everyday engagements with artificial intelligence (AI). Her book Media Activism, Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South was published by Routledge in 2023. She has also published in leading academic journals and contributed to several edited book collections. Andrea is currently the Vice President of IAMCR, the largest international association in the field of media and communication.

Prior to working at the University of Westminster, she worked as a Tenured Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and at the Postgraduate Programme in Media and Everyday life of Federal Fluminense University (UFF) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She acted as the Co-Investigator for the eVoices Network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), exploring different uses of digital technologies and artivism (art + activism) to fight marginalisation in countries of the Global South.

Andrea’s background is on Communication and Media Studies, having completed a Postdoc at Royal Holloway (2010-2012) as part of an AHRC-funded project on multiplatforming public service broadcasting; a Ph.D. at the University of Westminster (2006-2010) on community media in the favelas; and a MA on Communication & Society from the University of Oregon (as a Fulbright scholar). She has extensive teaching experience in the Higher Education sector in the UK (Bournemouth University, Royal Holloway, London Met, Westminster), Brazil (Fluminense Federal University) and the US (University of Oregon, University of California Berkeley). Currently, she teaches on a range of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Modules, such as Creative Industries and Professional Life; Digital Media and Society; Transforming Audiences; Data and Society Research and Methods; Strategic Campaign Communications and Major Project. Andrea also supervises doctoral students on topics such as everyday feminist digital activism in China; news making, social security and media ownership in Chile; and animation as tool to analyse South-to-South diasporic connections between Brazil and Nigeria. Her methodological expertise lies in qualitative methods and ethnographic research (online and offline).

In addition to her academic experience, Andrea has worked as a creative writer in advertising agencies, specialising in political communication and taking part in various election campaigns in Brazil.