About
Dr César Jiménez-Martínez is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where he also serves as Programme Director for the MSc Media and Communications.
His research examines how personal and collective identities are constructed, communicated and contested in the digital age, with a particular focus on nations and nationalism. He has contributed significantly to debates on digital nationalism, mediated nationhood, protest, nation branding and soft power, especially in the Latin American context. Dr Jiménez-Martínez’s work analyses how states, media organisations, activists and citizens are drawn into struggles over media visibility to legitimise authority, disrupt official narratives, and challenge dominant representations of national identity within an uneven global digital environment.
His work has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society, The International Journal of Press/Politics, International Journal of Communication, International Communication Gazette, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Geopolitics, and Place Branding and Public Diplomacy.
Between 2024 and 2026, Dr Jiménez-Martínez was Chair of the Popular Media & Culture Division of the International Communication Association (ICA). He is currently member of ICA’s Division and Interest Groups Mentoring Committee.
Prior to joining the department, he was lecturer at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University, and postdoctoral researcher at Loughborough University. He received his PhD in Media and Communications from LSE and holds a double MSc/MA in Global Communications from LSE and the University of Southern California.
Before becoming an academic, he worked almost a decade as a journalist for newspapers and television stations in Latin America. He also worked for Ogilvy Public Relations on different projects related with Nation Branding for several public and private organisations.
Awards
Winner 2026 Best Faculty Paper in Public Diplomacy and International Relations, International Communication Association (for ‘The Politics of National Promotion: Nation Branding and State Power in Latin America’, co-authored with Dr Pablo Miño).
Winner 2023 Best Faculty Paper in Public Diplomacy, International Communication Association (for ‘Threats, Truths and Strategies: The Overlooked Relationship between Protests, Nation Branding and Public Diplomacy’, co-authored with Dr Alina Dolea).
Runner-up 2022 Jay Blumler Best Article Award, in the International Journal of Press/Politics (for ‘The Instrumental Mediated Visibility of Violence: The 2013 Protests in Brazil and the Limitations of the Protest Paradigm’).
Winner 2021 Anthony D. Smith Award to outstanding article published in Nations and Nationalism (for ‘Digital Nationalism: Understanding the Role of Digital Media in the Rise of ‘New’ Nationalism’, co-authored with Professor Sabina Mihelj).
Runner-up 2021 Best Faculty Paper in Public Diplomacy, International Communication Association (for ‘Soft Power and Media Power: Western Foreign Correspondents and the Making of Brazil’s Image Overseas’).
Winner 2003 Best Student of Journalism, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Expertise
Media and nationalism; Nation branding; Public diplomacy; Soft power; Protests and contestation; Promotional cultures; Branding; Latin America; Visibility
Research
Dr Jiménez-Martínez’s work has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society, The International Journal of Press/Politics, International Journal of Communication, International Communication Gazette, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Geopolitics, and Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. He has received several awards, including the 2026 and 2023 Best Faculty Paper of the ICA Public Diplomacy Division, and the 2021 Anthony D. Smith Award to outstanding article published in Nations and Nationalism. His work was also second place in the 2022 Jay Blumler Best Article Award of The International Journal of Press Politics, and received an Honourable Mention in the 2021 ICA Annual Conference for best paper in Public Diplomacy Interest Group.
His most recent book, Nation Branding in the Americas: Contested Politics and Identities (Routledge, 2025, co-authored with Pablo Miño and Efe Sevin), provides a historical overview of how states across the Americas have relied since the turn of this century on promotional techniques to construct and circulate versions of national identity, as well as how these versions perpetuate significant global and local material and symbolic inequalities. This work expands on themes examined in his first book, Media and the Image of the Nation during Brazil's 2013 Protests, which was among the first academic studies developing a comprehensive analysis of the mediation of nationhood in the current digital, global and content-intensive media environment, using as example the Brazilian demonstrations of June 2013. The protests conflicted with the positive ‘nation-brand’ that local authorities tried to project as hosts of the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic games in 2016. The book made empirical and conceptual contributions to literature on nationalism and media, nation branding, and protests. It was positively reviewed in the International Journal of Press/Politics, Nations and Nationalism, Visual Studies and the LSE Review of Books, with commentators describing it as an ‘important’, ‘stimulating’ and ‘fascinating’ reading.
His work on protests and public diplomacy has been equally praised. The Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation’s blog dedicated a whole entry to the article ‘The Instrumental Mediated Visibility of Violence’, stating that it was a ‘helpful and thought-provoking’ work that advanced research on protest news coverage. Likewise, Bruce Gregory, member of the Public Diplomacy Council in the United States, stated that his work on protests and soft power was among the ‘must-read’ publications for scholars and practitioners in public diplomacy.