Local Organizing Committee

Conference Chairs

ISHS 2026 is co-chaired by professors Viktor Chagas and João Paulo Capelotti.

Chagas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Media Studies and a faculty member and researcher in the permanent staff of the Graduate Program in Communication, both affiliated with the Institute of Arts and Communication (IACS) at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). Chagas is a research productivity fellow (level C) of CNPq and was also a Young Scientist of Our State fellow from Faperj. He is a member of the management committee of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT.DD). He holds a PhD in History, Politics, and Cultural Heritage from the Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary Brazilian History (CPDOC-FGV) at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, with postdoctoral experience as a visiting researcher and Junior Postdoctoral fellow in Communication and Culture at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). His research expertise lies in Political Communication, particularly at the intersection of political culture and digital culture, humor, and democracy, among other topics. He leads the Research Laboratory in Communication, Political Cultures, and Collaborative Economy (coLAB/UFF) and coordinates the university extension project #MUSEUdeMEMES.

Chagas is also the author and editor of the collections A Cultura dos Memes (2020) and A Cultura dos Memes no Brasil (2024), both published by Edufba, as well as more than 60 articles in national and international scientific journals and 20 book chapters. Previously, he served as Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Political Communication (Compolítica) from 2019 to 2021 and as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Revista Compolítica (2011–2021). In 2014, he received the Best Doctoral Thesis Award from the Brazilian Association of Journalism Researchers (SBPJor), among other awards as a researcher and academic advisor.

Regarding scientific event organization, Chagas has experience as principal investigator, member of organizing committees, and scientific committees on various occasions. He was the main organizer of the #MUSEUdeMEMES Symposium+Exhibition, held in 2019 at the Catete Palace, Museum of the Republic, which brought together over 200 participants, including national and international researchers. This was the first large-scale event dedicated to debates on meme studies. The symposium ran concurrently with an exhibition displayed in four rooms of the palace from April to September of that year, extended twice due to public demand, and attracted more than 8,000 visitors. The event received financial support from Capes (PAEP call) and CNPq (Universal call).

Chagas also organized the online panel series Circuito de Formação sobre Meio Ambiente e Desinformação, promoted by the Brazilian Political Science Association (ABCP) in 2022. In 2021, as Executive Secretary of Compolítica, he joined the organizing committee of the 9th Compolítica Meeting at UFMG (online). Earlier, he was part of the organizing committee of the 4th Compolítica Meeting in 2011 at UERJ. More recently, he served for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024, on the scientific committee of the Communication Science Journeys at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra (FLUC).

Internationally, Chagas participates in multidisciplinary teams in various interinstitutional projects, including those funded by Facebook Research and the Atlantic Council. He is also involved in research projects led by the Universiteit van Amsterdam and maintains partnerships within coLAB/UFF with several organizations.

In addition to Chagas, the project is co-led by Professor and researcher João Paulo Capelotti, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Graduate Program in Communication at UFF. Capelotti holds a PhD and Master’s in Law of Social Relations from the Graduate Program in Law at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). He is also a lawyer and partner at Tomasetti Jr. & Xavier Leonardo Sociedade de Advogados. As a researcher, he has a long history of participation in ISHS events since 2014, organizing panels and Special Interest Groups on multiple occasions, as well as webinars focusing on humor production in the Global South, a topic also covered in a special edition of the European Journal of Humour Research, co-edited by Capelotti, Diego Hoefel (UFC), and Rujuta Date (University of Michigan). In 2021, he organized the online edition of Incitatus – Symposium on Humor and Politics.

Capelotti is also a member of the International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) and the International Society for Luso-Hispanic Humor Studies (ISLHHS). He participates in the Comparative Private Law Center at UFPR, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Xavier Leonardo; the Cultural History of Humor Study Group at the University of São Paulo (USP), coordinated by Prof. Dr. Elias Thomé Saliba; and the Intellectual and Industrial Property Study Group (GEDAI), coordinated by Prof. Dr. Marcos Wachowicz (UFPR).

Organizing Committee

The organizing committee also benefits from the extensive experience of its members, including the following members:

Viktor Chagas, associate professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (co-chair)

João Paulo Capelotti, post-doctoral fellowship at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (co-chair)

Benjamim Picado, full professor and coordinator of the Graduate Program in Communication (PPGCOM) at the Universidade Federal Fluminense

José Messias, assistant professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense

Denise Margonari Favaro, full professor at the Universidade do Estado de São Paulo Araraquara (Unesp Araraquara)

Diego Hoefel, assistant professor at the Universidade Federal do Ceará and director of Casa Amarela Eusélio Oliveira

Rodrigo Carreiro, research director and co-executive director of the think tank Aláfia Lab

Support Staff

Daniel Rios, designer, post-doctoral fellowship at the Universidade Federal Fluminense

Carlos Bonifácio, social media content strategy, master's candidate at the Universidade Federal Fluminense

The undergraduate and graduate students of communication in UFF, as well as the members of coLAB, will be of great help in the registration process and in the daily issues of the conference. UFF’s personnel will provide technical help for plenary and panel sessions, particularly the ones with remote participants.