Student profiles
Deborah Adesina
Email: deborah.adesina@liverpool.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-adesina/
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Dr Sarah Thomas – Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool
Prof Ekaterina Balabanova – Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool
Dr Richard Stupart – Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool
Research Summary
Over 4,500 celebrities support charitable causes around the world (according to ‘Look to the Stars’ website, 2024), yet academic scholarship stubbornly continues to analyze celebrity activism almost exclusively through Western lenses. Thus, while celebrity humanitarianism is often concerned with the Global South, by and large it is empirically ignored as a producer of celebrity humanitarians – or as a site for localized celebrity intervention. Nigeria presents a compelling case to address this gap — as Africa’s most populous country, its fourth-largest economy, home to two of the most influential cultural industries worldwide (Nollywood and Afrobeat), 37 million+ social media users, and as the location of multiple significant social crises.
Thus, using qualitative interviews with celebrities and critical discourse analysis of select text, this project undertakes a novel exploration of the ways in which celebrities engage with crises and uncertainties in Nigeria. The study not only fills a critical gap in existing literature, which is still predominantly focused on Western contexts; by adopting a mixed-method approach (especially direct interviews with celebrities), it also challenges and expands the methodology of the field.
By applying and critiquing western frameworks within this unique context, the study advances the decolonisation of knowledge and the dewesternisation of celebrity studies that is long overdue. It provides the first comprehensive examination of Nigerian celebrities’ interventions in social issues, with implications for how this contests/confirms what we know about celebrity humanitarianism elsewhere.
Research Interests
Humanitarianism, Global Development, Media, Communications, Celebrity Studies, Discourse Analysis
Publications
Adesina, D. and Girling, D. (2025) Charity Representations of Distant Others: an analysis of UK charity visual communications in direct mail campaigns. University of East Anglia, UK
Adesina, D. (2024) ‘Chess, Philanthropy and Social Media A Critical Analysis Of Technology For Social Justice In Nigeria’ paper presented at COSFAN International Conference, Nigeria
Girling, D. and Adesina, D. (2024) Charity Representations of Distant Others: an analysis of charity advertising supporting international causes in UK national newspapers. University of East Anglia, UK
Adesina, D. (2022) ‘Media Representation Of Women In Politics: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Nollywood Films’ paper presented at 6th African Women in Media Conference, Fez, Morocco
Abu E. A. and Adesina D. A. (2017). “Pedagogy: Blending and Branding in the Humanities” in Benson Idahosa University Journal of Education (BIUJE). Vol. 1, No. 1. pp. 101-111