Maria Gonçalves is a first-year PhD student in Communication Sciences, at the Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies (CICANT), from Lusófona University, in Lisbon. She has a master’s degree in Journalism and Media Studies, finishing with 19/20. Her master's thesis focused on independent journalism and sustainable business models. Her dissertation resulted in a book, accepted for publication this year, and the submission of a scientific paper in Media & Jornalismo (Q1), awaiting results. She’s currently a first stage researcher in EPIC-WE, a Horizon Europe project, developing work on the fields of cultural game-making, game jams and youth empowerment. Her work in this project resulted in the publication of two papers in two conference proceedings: 1) ECGBL 2024, “What is “Learning” in Serious Game Jams? A Systematic Literature Review”, as first author, and CISTI 2024, “Game Jams and game-making with a societal and cultural agenda for Youth”, as a co-author. She presented at the ECGBL 2024, in Aarhus, Denmark. For her PhD thesis, she will explore the tensions between economic and social sources of value in journalism, focusing on Portuguese independent journalism organizations, analyzing its production, distribution and organization practices, through and etnographic study.