About

I am a senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Derby. My research interests focus on news media and Latin American politics, particularly social media, nationalism, and neoliberal change in Chile and the Southern cone. I have published articles that discussed the impact of media and memory as well as the neoliberal restructuring in Chile and the UK from a comparative perspective.

I have been working in the UK higher education for more than 8 years and I worked as a journalist for Chilean and Latin American outlets covering politics and economics.

Teaching responsibilities

I have taught both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the areas of digital media, news writing, data journalism, political communication, and public affairs as well as research methods. I also supervise PhD projects.

Professional interests

My works and research look at both the structure and agency of the news media in the Southern Cone as political institutions within a neoliberal framework. I am interested in developing an understanding of how news media agency shapes national and political identities as well as political cultures in a digital environment.  At the same time, I am personally interested in the recent developments of social media as a political tool.

Research interests

My research interests are news media and journalism, neoliberalism, national identities and migration in Latin America.

I am happy to supervise PhD projects in the following areas:

• Journalism as political institutions
• News Media, national identities and migration
• News media and neoliberal change
• Journalism and Social Media

Membership of professional bodies

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCSSA)
• Society of Latin American Studies

Qualifications

• PhD in Politics, School of Politics and International Relations, The University of Nottingham (United Kingdom)
• MBA,  Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso (Chile)
• BA in Journalism and Media Studies, Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso (Chile)
• BA in History,  The University of Valparaiso (Chile)

Recent conferences

• Suarez, Rebeca & Urbina, Maria (2022)” The TikTok Surviving Guide to the cost-of-living crisis. A Mix Method analysis of Titokers content and followers’ answers”. Mobile Studies Congress 2022 (MSC2022). Ningbo 9^th -11^th December.
• Briceno, Lesley & Urbina, Maria (2022) “Jose Antonio Kast and the Chilean presidential elections of 2021. The New Right and the narrative of the existing national crisis. IPSA  Workshop ‘Latin America in crisis. Regional perspectives on political communication in the political and health emergency. Mexico City 21 – 23 September 2022
• Briceno, Lesley & Urbina, Maria ( 2021) ”National Exceptionalism and The Chilean New Right”. 26th World Congress of Political Science Association  IPSA. Lisbon 10 - 14 July
• Urbina, Maria L. (2019) “Exceptionalism and Neoliberalism: Immigration Images in Chilean Journalism” IX Conference of the European Research Council for Latin America Studies – CEISAL. Bucharest 29-  31 July
• Urbina, Maria & Watkins, Heather (2019) “Nae Pasaran: whatever happened to working-class internationalism?”. PSA Annual Conference 2019. Nottingham. 15 - 17 April
• Urbina, Maria and Watkins, Heather (2018) “Narrating Neoliberalism: The Media and the Construction of Crisis in Chile and the UK”. 2018 Society of Latin American Studies Annual Conference. Winchester 22 - 23 March
• Urbina, Maria (2018) “National Loneliness in a Globalised World: Chilean Exceptionalism and the Neoliberal Miracle Myth” International Conference Loneliness in the Mobile and Social Media. Wolverhampton. 23 February

Experience in industry

Before moving into higher education, I worked as a journalist for more than ten years for Chilean news outlets such as El Mercurio de Valparaiso as well as other institutions. From 2011 to 2015, I covered political and economic affairs in Europe and the UK for the Latin American magazine America Economia, where my work was awarded the Prize for Economic Journalism for the Best Article in Economic News Magazines by the CAF-Development Bank of Latin America and Instituto de la Empresa in 2013.

Recent publications

Recent papers and book chapters:

• Watkins, H. and Urbina-Montana, M. (2022) Obstinate memory: Working-class politics and neoliberal forgetting in the United Kingdom and Chile. Memory Studies. 15(5), pp 1127-1141.
• Mansell, Jon; Urbina, Maria & Watkins, Heather (2019) “National Renewal in the discourse of Neoliberal Transition in Britain and Chile'.  Journal Political Ideologies.  24(1), pp.74-92
• Urbina, Maria (2018) “Tales of Migration from the Global South. The Civilised and Uncivilised migrant in the narratives from La Tercera and El Mercurio”. In Balica Ed Migration and Crime. (pp. 109-138)  London: Palgrave

Recent book reviews:

• Urbina, M.L. (2022), Jimenez-Martinez, Cesar (2020) Media and the Images of the Nation during Brazil's 2013 Protests' Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol 41, No 5, pp 846-847
• Urbina, Maria L (2022) ‘Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America’ Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 41, No. 2, pp331-33
• Urbina, Maria L (2015) " Dictatorships in South America". Bulletin of Latin American Research, 34(4), pp.541-542