Academic Research and Teaching

Carolina Fernández-Castrillo is Associate Professor of AI, Digital Communication and Cyberculture at the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Carlos III University of Madrid.

She is the coordinator of Digital Communication and Culture at the Spanish Association of Media Research (AE-IC), she leads the ecomedia literacy area at the Climate Strategic Initiative (UC3M), and the research on environmental disinformation at Iberifier (Iberian Digital Media Observatory).

Currently, she is also professor and coordinator of the following Academic Programs in Digital Communication and Innovation:

• Master in Transmedia Documentary and Reportage (UC3M/RTVE) –  Mobile and Interactive Storytelling
• Master in Advertising Communication (UC3M) – Cultural Creativity

And also as external professor:

• Master in Creative Direction, Content & Branding (IE Business School) – Intercreativity & Emerging Media

• Master in Digital Media, Business & Technology   (UCM) – Digital Culture and Cyberculture

She is also responsible for the implementation of the course Journalism & Artificial Intelligence in the Double Degree in the Dual Bachelor in Journalism and Film, Television and Media Studies (UC3M), where she also teaches Communication and Participation of Civil Society in the Internet, a pioneer subject on the Information Society from Civic Engagement and Cyberactivism.

She is currently finalizing the editing process of the volume Horizons of Artificial Intelligence for Climate Action (Fragua).

She is also the coordinating editor of two special issues, together with Antonio López (John Cabot University, Rome), Ramón Salaverría (University of Navarra), and Vitor Tomé (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa).

**JOURNAL OF MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION – the official academic journal of the National Association for Media Literacy Education –
Ecomedia and the Climate Crisis: From Environmental Disinformation to Ecoliteracy
Deadline for submission of articles: January 30, 2026 (full text).
Publication: December 2026.

 

**DIGITAL JOURNALISM

Environmental Journalism and EcoFact-Checking in the Face of the Triple Planetary Crisis
Deadline for abstract submissions: January 12, 2026.
Notification of abstract acceptance: February 16, 2026.
Deadline for submission of articles: April 27, 2026.
Publication: 2027.

In the last two decades, she has developed her teaching and research activity in many renowned international institutions.

As a founding member of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, she leads research and third mission projects on Media Artivism, a new concept that she introduced at the Biennale Arte Venezia to promote media literacy against disinformation from new formats for digital journalism and civic engagement. From the VeDPH she was the Principal Investigator of the project “Digital Media Culture: Intercreativity and Public Engagement” (2019-2024) on digital innovation and civic awareness in connective environments.

She is the editor of several academic special issues, as well as the author of over a hundred of indexed publications of theoretical innovation in prestigious academic journals and editorial houses as Amsterdam University Press, Manchester University Press, Bulzoni Editore, etc. and invited lectures at international institutions as CityU of Hong Kong, Queen Mary University of London, University of Bologna, NOVA University Lisbon, Saint Louis University, etc.

It is remarkable her work as professor responsible for the area of “Experiential Learning” at New York University-Madrid, an essential experience in her contribution to the field of Innovation in Educommunication. She usually collaborates as Guest Lecturer in several international PhD programs as the Doctorate Program of Culture and Media Industry at Bayreuth Universität, a benchmark in Transmedia Studies. She has also coordinated the area of “Research in Digital Media” of the Doctoral Program at Madrid Open University and she was the Academic Director of the Master in Digital Communication and the Master in Education and New Technologies.

Regarding her academic background, she is European PhD at Complutense University of Madrid and Sapienza University of Rome (2009), where she has also been a Lecturer. Her contribution to Intermedia Studies on the relation between the old and digital Avant-garde gained a great recognition, she won the Extraordinary Doctorate Award and the Excellence Mention from Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard together with an invitation as Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. She conducted this research between Spain, Italy and the United States with the funding program from the Official Credit Institute Foundation and the Ministry of Education. Among the international institutions of her Predoctoral training, we find also Universiteit Utrecht and Bremen Universität.

From 2009, she has been Associate Researcher at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, where she developed her projects on Digital Innovation on Interactive and Immersive Communication. She has also been Visiting Scholar at Yale University and has conducted her Postdoctoral research at Bayreuth Universität and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

In the last years, she has been the Director of several international research groups as Studies on Intermediality and Intercultural Mediation (SIIM/UCM) or Visual Media and Digital Communication (UDIMA). Currently, she is researcher in the group TECMERIN (Television-cinema: memory, representation and industry) as the driving expert in the area of Media Archaeology, and she is part of several European and innational funded research projects. She has collaborated with multiple institutions and research centers as expert in Digital Culture as the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) at Open University of Catalonia, founded by Manuel Castells.

Her work focuses on developing creative strategies for innovation in new communication formats that promote citizen participation through the use of new technologies. In 2022 she organized the International Conference on Transmedia Activism: Creativity & Expanded Information (UC3M, VeDPH, Istituto Italiano di Cultura-Madrid) with the participation of Carlos Scolari and Paolo Cirio, among others. In 2024, she coordinated the special issue on Media Artivism in Artnodes and in 2014, the monographic on Media Art: Art, Science and Technology in Revista Icono14.