Bravo’s paper is a qualitative study where she interviewed 20 U.S.-based migrants —documented and undocumented—from Mexico, El Salvador, and Costa Rica
Assistant professor Vanessa Bravo presented at the 17th annual International Public Relations Research Conference (IPRRC) in Miami on March 6.
Bravo’s paper, “Public Diplomacy Efforts with Diaspora Communities in the U.S.: Perceptions of Latino Diaspora Community Members,” is a qualitative study where she interviewed 20 migrants — documented and undocumented — from Mexico, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, to understand these migrants’ perceptions about the government-diaspora relationship-building efforts initiated by their home countries.
With the information collected through the 20 in-depth interviews, Bravo assessed the levels of awareness and satisfaction of these diaspora members with their respective governments’ public diplomacy efforts aimed at the diaspora communities based in the United States. Among the participants in the study, all of them North Carolina residents, there were from a former guerrilla fighter in El Salvador to professionals in leadership positions.
Bravo joined the School of Communications in the fall of 2011, just before obtaining her Ph.D. in Mass Communications from the University of Florida.
Her research has been presented in national and international conferences, and it has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Public Relations Review, Global Media Journal (American Edition), Revista Internacional de Relaciones Públicas (Spain), and Palabra Clave (Colombia). Bravo also authored a book chapter in Communication and Community (Hampton Press/ICA).