Introduction

Juan Plaza has a PhD in Communication from the Pontifical University of Salamanca and a Postdoctoral certificate of specialization in Non Sexist Treatment of Information (University of Jaume I, Castellón). He has been a professor at the Faculty of Communication of the Pontifical University of Salamanca since 2000, where he teaches a range of courses in Writing Communication and Information and Audiovisual Editing. He has codirected the graduate program in Gender and Communication and served as a member of a governmental oversight committee, the Observatorio de Publicidad y Medios de Comunicación, for Castilla and León.

The main focus of his research is the study of images of men and women in mass media from a gender perspective. He has researched on models of masculinity and femininity that appear in teenagers women's magazines or the role of women in newspapers, to name a few. Now leads the research group Media and gender, which is currently developing two research projects: one on women's 'real' in advertising and the second on the social desirability of male and female characters in most successful TV series. He has published several books and articles on media representations of masculinity and femininity.