CAMRI alumna Dr Manisha Ganguly has been shortlisted in the 2023 MeCCSA Outstanding Achievement Awards in the Doctoral Research of the Year category.
The MeCCSA Awards recognise outstanding research in Media, Communication and Cultural studies. Manisha has been shortlisted for her CAMRI-funded PhD entitled The Future of Investigative Journalism in the Age of Automation, Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) which she completed at the University of Westminster in 2022. Manisha was supervised by Professor Christian Fuchs, previous Professor of Social Media and Professor of Media, Communication and Society at the University and Westminster and the Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). Manisha’s second supervisor was Dr Pieter Verdegem, Reader in Technology and Society in the Westminster School of Media and Communications and member of CAMRI.
Manisha’s thesis, which is the first ever looking at Open-Source Intelligence in practice, examines the impact of OSINT on investigative work, OSINT methodologies and practices, and the mental health of journalists, and develops a typology of OSINT tools in practice. The study explores how the adoption of OSINT tools in investigative units have enabled the investigations of a range of human rights abuses from locations previously inaccessible or difficult to access due to conflict, and how the findings from OSINT have led to international prosecutions at the ICC and elsewhere.
The judges described Manisha’s thesis as “an important study, mapping the parameters of OSINT work and the impact of those who conduct it, clearly situated and providing helpful recommendations for a range of stakeholders”.
Manisha is a multi-award winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. She was named Journalist of the Year 2022 by One Young World and has been included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Media and Marketing in Europe. Her documentaries have exposed war crimes in Libya and Syria, human trafficking in the Middle East and uncovered the training of the killers of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. She currently works as an Investigations Correspondent at The Guardian, and her documentaries for the BBC World Service have been broadcast to over 300 million people worldwide.
Speaking about the awards, Manisha said: “I am absolutely delighted to be shortlisted for this prestigious award and would like to thank my supervisors Professor Christian Fuchs and Dr Pieter Verdegem for all their help with my thesis, without which I wouldn’t be here today.”
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