Dr. Agina A.
Programme Director
Añulika Agina is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the Pan-Atlantic University Lagos, with a research focus on media effects, film and social change, cinema-going/streaming cultures and more recently women filmmakers. She has academic degrees from the University of Lagos, Pan-Atlantic University and the University of Westminster. She teaches media literacy and theories of media and communication, qualitative research, film and cultural analysis, and media, family and society. She was Academic Director across three departments of the SMC from 2015-2019; and coordinated several research seminars, conferences and workshops for staff and students from 2009-2019. She is currently the Programme Director of the MSc Media and Communication, and a member of the SMC Management Board.
Dr Agina has completed research fellowships in South Africa, Germany and British universities, and collaborated with several international research teams. Funded by the European Research Council from 2019-2024, she worked on the Screen Worlds project at SOAS University of London to investigate Nigerian screen cultures and creative industries, which led to the production of a documentary on film exhibition titled Behind my Nollywood Screen (2022) and a co-edited book on Contemporary African Screen Worlds (2025) by Duke University Press.
She is the Convener of the Women Filmmakers’ Research Network, and her research has been published in the Journal of African Media Studies, Black Camera, Critical African Studies, Journal of African Cultural Studies and other reputable journals. She serves on the Editorial Boards of high impact journals
Dr. Agina has facilitated young women’s leadership programmes for about a decade and mentored postgraduate students and ECRs in Nigeria, other parts of Africa and elsewhere. She is passionate about media research and the tangible benefits derived from it beyond publications. When she is not working, she reads and watches medical, legal and historical fiction (and literature). She also studies music informally.
Recent Publications
Agina, A. & Adah, A. (2025a). Up North: The re-narration of Northeast Nigeria. In J. Llamas-Rodrigues (Ed.). Media Travels: Towards an Atlas of Glabal Media. pp 77-90. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.14494542 Amherst, MA: Amherst College Press
Agina, A. (2025b). Netflix the enabling-disruptor in Nigeria. In L. Dovey, A. Agina & M. W. Thomas (Eds.) pp. 53-73, Duke University Press.
Dovey, L., Agina, A., & Thomas, M. W. (2025b). Introduction: Exploring Screen Worlds. In. L. Dovey, A. Agina & Michael W. Thomas (Eds.), pp. 20-35 Contemporary African Screen Worlds. Duke University Press
Agina, A. (January 2023a). Remembering the past: A conversation with Afolabi Adesanya as film exhibitor. Black Camera, 14:2
- Agina, A. and Cheeka, D. (2023b). Accessing the Nigerian Film Archive: Tensions and Questions. In S. Schulte Strathaus and V. Hediger (eds.). Accidental Archivism: Shaping Cinema’s Futures with Remnants of the Past. Frankfurt: Meson Press.
- Agina, A. (2022a). Nigerian film audiences on the internet: Influences, preferences and contentions. In G. Musila (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture (pp. 237-259). Oxfordshire: Routledge
Agina, A. (2021b). Netflix and the Transnationalization of Nollywood. Post-45 New Filmic Geographies Journal. https://post45.org/2021/04/netflix-and-the-transnationalization-of-nollywood/ 13th April 2021
Agina, A. (2019a). Cinema-going in Lagos: three locations, one film, one weekend. Journal of African Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13696815.2019.1615871