The School of Communications professor analyzed the factors that are helping or hindering the voting intention and behavior of Costa Ricans who live abroad in the newly granted external voting process.
The peer-reviewed journal, edited by the University of Málaga, Spain, specializes in communication processes in or about Latin America and Spain. Bravo’s paper incorporated information gathered from 40 interviews with Costa Ricans who live abroad – some who decided to vote in a newly granted external voting right and others who did not vote in the 2014 Costa Rican national elections – to analyze the factors that impacted the voting intention and/or behavior of these Costa Rican diaspora members.
As part of her research, Bravo categorized the factors using the independent variables of the Situational Theory of Publics: problem recognition, constraint recognition (internal and external constraints) and level of involvement. This theory was used to better understand what is moving these potential external voters to vote or not, in order to suggest what kinds of efforts should the Costa Rican government undertake to increase external voter turnout. The implications for public diplomacy and international public relations are explored in the study.
The research paper is available on the journal’s website.
Bravo joined the School of Communications in fall 2011. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Florida, and she has published peer-reviewed papers in the following journals: The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Public Relations Review, International Journal of Communication (IJOC), Global Media Journal (American Edition), Revista Internacional de Relaciones Públicas (Spain), and Palabra Clave (Colombia). She also authored chapters in the books “Communication and Community” (Hampton Press) and “International Public Relations and Public Diplomacy” (Peter Lang).