Professor Tanja Bosch
Professor Tanja Bosch (they/she) is the author of Broadcasting Democracy: Radio and Identity in South Africa (HSRC Press, 2017) and Social Media and Everyday Life in South Africa (Routledge, 2020). She is co-editor of Digital Citizenship in Africa (Zed Books, 2023), Feminist Digital Citizenship in Africa (Bloomsbury, 2025), and the Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics, 2nd edition (forthcoming). Her new monograph, Calibrated Intimacies: Algorithms, Emotion, and the Soft Power of Apps, is forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan in 2026. She is currently editing Queer Digital Citizenship in Africa with Nyx Maclean and Tony Roberts (forthcoming 2027, Bloomsbury).
Bosch's research addresses decolonising digital methods, digital citizenship, and social media culture and activism. Current projects examine AI in teaching and learning, civic tech in Africa, and the role of social media and AI during elections. She is Associate Editor of Communication Theory and Africa Editor of Information, Communication and Society. She also serves as Chairperson of the African Digital Rights Network (https://www.africandigitalrightsnetwork.org/) and holds the SARChI Chair in Digital Media Sociology, funded by the National Research Foundation.
Professor Bosch is an NRF B-rated scholar.
Recent publications
Books
Bosch, T. (forthcoming 2026). Calibrated Intimacies: Algorithms, Emotion, and the Soft Power of Apps. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bruns, A., Enli, G., Larsson, A., Robinson, J., and Bosch, T. (eds). (2026). Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics, 2nd edition. Routledge.
Roberts, T., and Bosch, T. (eds). (2025). Feminist Digital Citizenship in Africa. Bloomsbury Academic.
Roberts, T., and Bosch, T. (eds). (2023). Digital Citizenship in Africa: Technologies of Agency and Repression. Zed Books.
Journal articles
Bosch, T. (2026). A Twitter obituary: Fragile digital publics and their afterlife. M/C Journal, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.3248
Bosch, T. (2026). Epistemic asymmetries: Rethinking culture, theory, and method from the South. Journalism and Communication Monographs, 28(1), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/15226379251409621
Bosch, T. (2025). Decolonisation is not a vibe: On anti-capitalist praxis, citation politics, and epistemic refusal. Media, Culture and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437251360382
Schoon, A., Smit, A., Uzuegbunam, C., and Bosch, T. (2025). Adoption and perceptions of generative AI among South African academics. Teaching in Higher Education, 31(2), 248–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2025.2571911
Iqani, M., and Bosch, T. (2025). The politics of privilege when hiking the South African Wild Coast. Journal of Ecotourism. https://doi.org/10.1080/14724049.2025.2531034
Nkoala, S., Matsilele, T., Ndlovu, M., and Bosch, T. (2025). AI hype through an African lens: A critical analysis of language as symbolic action in online news publications. Digital Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2025.2528052
Peer-reviewed book chapters
Bosch, T. (2026). Redefining digital audience research: Perspectives and practices from the Global South. In T. Sabry, W. Mano, and A. Medrado (eds), Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South: Context, Theory and Method (pp. 71–87). Routledge.
Bosch, T., and Davies-Laubscher, N. (2026). Promoting local voices: A content analysis of print community newspapers in South Africa. In F. Krüger, S. Chiumbu, and H. Wasserman (eds), Media on the Margins in South Africa (Chapter 8). Palgrave.
Bosch, T., and Iqani, M. (forthcoming 2026). Media-walking as method for media, communications and cultural studies. In S. Hall and H. Holmes (eds), More Mundane Methods. Manchester University Press.
Bosch, T. (2025). Researching political communication on WhatsApp: Reflections on method. In S. Udupa and H. Wasserman (eds), WhatsApp in the World: Disinformation, Encryption, and Extreme Speech. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479833306.001.0001