Professor Porto is a political communication scholar who studies the linkages between media and democratization, with a focus on Brazil. His research has examined the political dimensions of communication practices and genres, including journalism, telenovelas, political advertising, presidential debates, and social media. His most recent book Mirrors of Whiteness: Media, Middle-Class Resentment, and the Rise of the Far Right in Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023) analyzes the role of media representations in fostering a status panic in the white middle class, which in turn played a key role in the conservative revolt that took place in Brazil between 2013 and 2018.