Professor Winston Mano

Favourite Saying: “The role of media in development is more impactful when different ways of knowing and being in the world are centered to expand existing epistemes and practices”.

Winston Mano is a full Professor and a member of the University of Westminster’s top-rated Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). He is also a Course Leader for the MA in Media and Development and the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Media Studies.

Winston Mano has authored in and edited the following books: (2023) Media Ownership in Africa in the Digital Age: Challenges, Continuity and Change (with Loubna El Makaour); (2021) Routledge Handbook of African Media and Communication Studies (with viola c. milton), (2020)Social Media and Elections in Africa (with Martin N. Ndlela), Vol 1 & 2: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030326814; (2019) International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers (with Nicholas Benequista, Susan Abbott, Paul Rothman) https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/65486?format=HC, (2017) African Film Cultures: Contexts of Creation and Circulation (with Barbara Knorpp and Anuli Agina), available at: https://goo.gl/vjZndV, (2017) Everyday Media Culture in Africa: Audiences and Users (with Wendy Willems), available at: https://goo.gl/RasyPS, (2016), China’s Media and Soft Power in Africa: Promotion and Perceptions (with Xiaoling Zhang and Herman Wasserman), available at: https://goo.gl/2yuc1X, and (2015) Racism, Ethnicity and the Media in Africa: Mediating Conflict in the Twenty-First Century, available at: http://bit.ly/1PA2elh . 

Winston Mano has authored chapters in (2023) Media Ownership in Africa in the Digital Age: Challenges, Continuity and Change; Global Media Ethics and the Digital Revolution (2021); Peace and Conflict Reporting (2021); Decolonising Journalism (2021); BRICS Media: Reshaping the Global Communication Order (2021); Global Media and National Policies: The Return of the State (2016), Participatory Politics and Citizen Journalism in a Networked Africa A Connected Continent (2015), Radio in Africa Publics, Cultures, Communities(2012), Popular Media, Democracy and Development In Africa (2011), Zimbabwe's New Diaspora: Displacement And The Cultural Politics of Survival(2010) and Internationalizing Media Studies(2009).

Winston Mano has also published in peer-reviewed journals such as Communicatio; Javnost; the Radio Journal; Interactions; Critical Arts, Global Media and Communication and Westminster Communication and Culture.

Winston Mano's research interests include Afrokology, Decoloniality; African radio, music, media audiences, new media and democracy, China- African media relations, African democracy and development. After he joined CAMRI he became Director of the Africa Media Centre and helped establish the CAMRI Africa Media Series of conferences on 'Reporting Zimbabwe: Before and After 2000' (2005), 'Media and Social change in Africa' (2006), 'Media and Democracy in Africa' (2007) and the 'Media and Development in Africa' (2008); 'African-Arab Media Audiences' 2009, 'Racism, Ethnicity and the Media in Africa' (2010), "Youth, Children and the Media in Africa" (2011), "ICTs and Social Change in Africa" (2012), "Public Service Broadcasting in Africa" (2013), African Film and Politics (2013) and The Media and Elections in Africa (2014). Mano has previously researched for the World Association of Newspaper (WAN) (2010).

In 2020-2023, Mano worked as Co-Director of the Chevening African Media Freedom Fellowship (CAMFF) with £600,000. In 2023 Mano  is lead for a $48,000 Mozilla project to make a Swahili chatbot for rural women farmers in Kenya. In March 2013, Mano worked on a public service broadcasting project supported by UNESCO and sponsored by £5000 from BBC Media Action. He was part of a successful Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (CCFK) research bid (EUR50,000) as joint researcher with Professors Herman Wasserman (Rhodes University, South Africa) and Xiaoling Zhang (Nottingham University) on the project examining China's Soft Power in Africa. He collaborated with colleagues at The Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Norway on China-Africa media relations (2013-2015). In 2013, he was awarded (together with Dr Lynete Mukhongo from Moi University, Kenya) £10,000 under The British Academy's International Partnership and Mobility Scheme (2013-2014).

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.