Melissa Santillana

Biography

Dr. Santillana was born and raised in Mexico and moved to Lubbock from South Texas. She has a Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a Fulbright scholar in Mexico City. Before her academic journey, Melissa was the Spanish Editor for the border newspaper Laredo Morning Times.  Melissa's work has been published in First Monday, International Journal of Communication, New Media and Society, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, and the Journal of Public Opinion Research. She is a co-author of From Telenovelas to Netflix: Transnational, Transverse Television in Latin America (Palgrave, 2021). Her research focuses on international media flows, activist movements and protests, feminist activism, digital media, and digital inequality.