Fred Mudhai

Dr Mudhai is Associate Professor and Course Director, MA Global Journalism and Public Relations in the School of Media and Performing Arts, College of Arts and Humanities where he is Associate Head of School for Student Experience. He joined Coventry in 2004 and took a 17-month (November 2012 to April 2014) research secondment to the University of Cambridge to work on a DFID/ESRC-funded project, Politics and Interactive Media in Africa, with a focus on Kenya and Zambia. He served as a member of Information Technology (IT) and Civil Society Network, within IT and International Cooperation Programme, at the US Social Science Research Council (2003-2005) through which he took part as an academic in the first UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva (2003). Through London-based Panos Institute, he covered - as a journalist - the the second WSIS in Tunis (2005).

He was a category winner in the 1999 African Journalist Foundation Journalist of the Year Award that was thereafter taken over by co-sponsor CNN International, and his other awards include two at global level for his writing on information and communication technologies with a focus on Africa. His recent publications include a monograph, Civic Engagement, Digital Networks and Political Reform in Africa (2013), and a co-edited book, African Media and the Digital Public Sphere (2009) featuring authors based in various parts of the world – containing three solo/co-authored chapters. His other publications include journal articles and book chapters.

He was a full time journalist at The Standard Media Group (Nairobi) from mid 1990s for five years, also contributing to outlets in Africa [The Sunday Times], the UK [Africa Confidential] and the USA [Voice of America].

New/open media and society - especially in developing world; ICT use by urban civil society political actors - Kenya and Zambia; Media and politics in Africa; Global/international media and communication, issues policies and theories; Journalism theories and practice.

My work focuses on activities and initiatives facilitated by information and communication technologies that contribute to a more open and democratic society – especially in Africa. I pay attention to formal actors, with global links, as well as the more informal networks. Recent developments such as the Occupy movements, whistleblower-/leak-based global collaborative journalism (WikiLeaks, Panama Papers, Paradise Papers) and the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings buttress my main thesis that the use of new digital media especially by savvy non-state actors challenge the ruling elite in a manner that had hardly been witnessed before, BUT states and their agents still possess the resources and tools to counter these forms of checks, resistance and defiance.