Luis Rodrigo Pesce Villagómez

Luis Rodrigo Pesce Villagómez is a doctoral researcher at the HCIAS and the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of Heidelberg University and a member of the HCIAS Doctoral Research Group “Communication and Society in Ibero-America”. He holds a scholarship of the National Council for Humanities, Sciences and Technology (CONAHCYT) of the Mexican government.

His doctoral research focuses on violence against journalists and communicators in Mexico with an emphasis on its correlation with criminal organizations’ public communication efforts via social media, its effects on freedom of speech, right to information, and self-censorship, and the measures adopted by journalists to protect themselves from that violence. His research project, titled “Criminal Public Communication via Social Media, Violence against Journalists, and Self-Censorship in Mexico: Challenges and Opportunities” is supervised by HCIAS Jun.-Prof. Dr. Alejandro Ecker. 

Luis holds a Master of Arts in International Media Studies of the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, the Deutsche Welle Akademie, and the University of Bonn. In collaboration with freedom of speech NGO Artículo 19: Oficina para México y Centroamérica, Luis wrote his master’s thesis on the characteristics of violence against journalists in Mexico and the types of messages and target audiences found in criminal organizations’ social media posts. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies, Campus Queretaro (Tecnológico de Monterrey). 

As a journalist, translator, and copywriter, Luis has experience in various aspects of print and digital media. In the position of Senior Industry Analyst & Journalist at Mexico Business Publishing, he participated in the creation of six yearbooks on the most important sectors of the Mexican economy and published several hundred analysis and news articles for that company’s digital outlets. Additionally, as freelance copywriter, transcriber, and translator, he has collaborated with Capital Analytics Associates and Confíe Holding. He also interned as editorial assistant and wrote articles for various print and digital publications on international relations of Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Querétaro.