Nicole Stremlau is a collaborator with For Digital Dignity, Project ONLINERPOL and Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy and a Research Fellow in the Centre of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.
Stremlau’s research focuses on media and governance, particularly in areas of conflict and insecurity in Africa. Her most recent projects examine the role of new media in political participation and governance; media law and regulation in the absence of government or in weak states;the role of media in conflict, peacebuilding and the consolidation of political power; and how governments attempt to engage citizens and communicate law-making processes. Stremlau’s doctoral work explored the role of media during the guerrilla insurgencies in Uganda and Ethiopia, and how the successive governments used the media to consolidate political power in the aftermath of violence.
While Stremlau continues to research and write on Ethiopia, her more recent research has been on media and conflict in Somalia and Somaliland, which has received funding from the United Nations, among others. Stremlau is currently writing a monograph on the Politics of Communication in Africa.Her research has contributed to academic journals, including the International Journal of Communication and the Journal of Eastern African Studies, as well as to research by governmental organizations such as the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development.