Qualifications:
Pre-Degree Dip, BSc (Hons.) Mass Communication, MSc Mass Communication (Nigeria), PhD Media Studies (UCT)

Address

Room 107, Africa Media Matrix Building

Upper Prince Alfred Street

Makhanda

Postal address

School of Journalism and Media Studies

Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网

PO Box 94

Makhanda 6140

 

Courses Taught

JMS2 Intro to Cultural Studies: Representation, Genre and Narrative

JMS3 Self-representation, Authenticity, and Social Media

Honours: Digital Media Service Learning elective

JMS Master’s: Convenor of Research Seminars

Supervising PhD, MA, and Honours students (open to contact for possible supervision).

Community and Public Engagement

• Contributor: The Conversation, The Journalist, Voices 360, Corona Times, IOL Media, and several newspapers.

 

• Deputy Presiding Officer: Ad-hoc staff for the 2011 General Elections, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Benue State, Nigeria.

 

• Member & Co-lead (Education & Research): Volunteer Expert Group (VEG), for developing National Artificial Intelligence Policy, by Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)

 

• 2023–2025: ‘Youth, Sociality, and Digital Inequality’ – Collaborative project with young people (as co-researchers and participants) in Makana Municipality, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

 

• 2023: Digital Literacy Service-Learning Community Engagement (School of Journalism & Media Studies Honours Class + Assumption Development Centre, Makhanda).

 

• 2024: Academic Expert Panellist: eNCA Live Town Hall Debate, in collaboration with Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, held at Drama Theatre, Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, 22 April.

 

Professional Involvement

Scientific Committees

• Executive Committee Member (Membership Committee), International Panel for the Information Environment (IPIE), Switzerland.

 

• Chair, Communication Advocacy and Activism Stream, South African Communication Association (SACOMM)

 

• 2023: Member, Best PhD Dissertation Award Committee, Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)

 

Editorial Board Appointments

Assistant Editor: African Journalism Studies (since 2019)

Assistant Editor: Annals of the International Communication Association (since 2020)

Editorial Board Member: Romanian Journal of Communication & Public Relations (since 2020)

Advisory Board Member: Journal of Media Literacy Education (2023–2026)

Advisory Board Member: Minority Africa (since 2023)

Editorial Board Member: Communication Theory (2024–2027)

 

2025: Global Fellow: the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South, Northwestern 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, Qatar.

2024: Rated Researcher: National Research Foundation of South Africa (Y2 Rating)

2023: CCNY/ASA Fellow: Carnegie Corporation of New York Fellowship in partnership with African Studies Association (ASA), San Francisco, California, USA.

2023 – 2024: Academic Writing Fellow, Department of Sociology, Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.

2021: Visiting Researcher, 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Groningen, The Netherlands, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies.

2021: Fellow, Nigerian School of Internet Governance (NSIG), Nigeria.

2019: Oxford Media Policy Institute Fellow, 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Oxford, United Kingdom, Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy (PCMLP), Centre for Socio-Legal Studies.

2017: Visiting PhD Scholar, The Norwegian 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Centre in Paris, (and the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Bergen, Norway).

 

Research areas

Young people and the media

Digital cultures

Misinformation

Political and health communication

Media audiences

Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence)

 

Research projects

2022 – 2024: Co-Principal Investigator: Mellon Foundation Project “Youth, Sociality, and Digitality in South Africa” (Grant nr. 31700711), School of Journalism & Media Studies, Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.

 

2021-2022 Lead Researcher: “Digital Technology, Health Information-Seeking, Health Mis/disinformation and Young People in Nigeria”. Part of “Future Hospitals: AI/4IR and Ethics of Care in Africa,"  funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York

 

2016-2019 PhD Project ‘The Digital Lifeworld of Young Nigerians.’ 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Cape Town, South Africa.

 

2016 Researcher: Project on Girl Child Education in Anambra State – Investment Not Expenditure for Anambra State Development – for Ministry of Education, Government of Anambra State, Nigeria.

 

2021-2022 Lead Researcher: “Digital Technology, Health Information-seeking, Health Mis/disinformation and Young People in Nigeria”. Part of “Future hospitals: AI/4IR and Ethics of Care in Africa”, funded by Carnegie Corporation of NY.

 

2016-2019 PhD Project ‘The Digital Lifeworld of Young Nigerians.’ 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Cape Town, South Africa.

 

2016 Researcher: Project on Girl Child Education in Anambra State – Investment Not Expenditure for Anambra State Development – for Ministry of Education, Government of Anambra State, Nigeria.

 

Selected Research publications

Book

2024: Children and Young People’s Digital Lifeworlds: Domestication, Mediation, and Agency. Switzerland: Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Journal articles 

2022   ‘Assessing Rural and Urban Teenagers' Domestication of Technology: The Role of Digital Literacy. International Journal of Mobile & Blended Learning, 14(3), 1-15.

 

2021   ‘South African media’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic’. Journal of African Media Studies, 13(3), 333-350. (with H. Wasserman, T. Bosch, W. Chuma, R. Flynn)

 

2021   ‘Oppositional gaze or revenge? A critical ideological analysis of foreignness and foreign identities in Nollywood feature films’. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 13(1), 121-139.

 

2021   ‘Motivations for Sharing Misinformation: A Comparative Study in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries’. International Journal of Communication 14, 1—20. (with D. Madrid-Morales, H. Wasserman, G. Gondwe, K. Ndlovu, E. Sikanku, M. Tully, E. Umejei).

 

Book chapters

2022: ‘Negotiating Youth-centred Research: Ethical Reflections on Research with Young People in Rural and Urban Spaces in Nigeria’, Spencer, G. (Ed.), Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People, Emerald Publishing, Bingley, pp. 43-55.

 

2020: ‘Digital communication technologies: Concepts, Practices and Trends’. In Okunna, C.S. (ed.), Communication and Media Studies: Multidimensional Perspectives (pp. 513–538). New Generation Books, Nigeria.

 

2020: ‘Toward hybridised and glocalised youth identities in Africa? Revisiting old concerns and reimagining new possibilities for media education.’ In Divina Frau Meigs, Sirkku Kotilainen, Manisha Pathak-Shelat, Michael Hoechsmann and Stuart R. Poyntz (Eds.), Handbook of Media Education Research (pp. 97–104). Wiley-Blackwell & IAMCR.

 

2020: ‘Critical Viewing’. In Debra Merskin (Ed), The Sage International Encyclopaedia of Mass Media and Society. SAGE Publications Inc.

 

2020: ‘Concentration of Media Ownership’. In Debra Merskin (Ed), The Sage International Encyclopaedia of Mass Media and Society. SAGE Publications Inc.

 

2020: ‘A critical analysis of how transgressive social media images and memes portrayed dominant political discourses during Nigeria’s 2015 General Elections.’ In Ndlela, Martin & Mano, Winston (Eds), Social Media & Electoral Democracy in Africa (Vol. 2). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Full publications list: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4805RQkAAAAJ&hl=en

 https://muckrack.com/dr_uzuegbunam/articles