Research interests

• Media and Politics
• Decoloniality
• Media, identity and representation
• Social media and protests
• Communication from below

• Media and politics
• Social media
• Identity
• Race
• Genocide
• Protests and social movements
• Decolonisation

BOOKS

• Matsilele, Trust; Mpofu, Shepherd and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory and Newsmaking Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.
• Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust; Tshuma Lungile A; and Msimanga, Mbongeni J (Eds). Forthcoming 2023. Media, social movements and protest cultures in Africa. Routledge: London.
• Mphathisi Ndlovu, Lungile Tshuma and Shepherd Mpofu (Eds). Forthcoming 2023. Remembering Mass Atrocities in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.
• Mudavanhu, S., Mpofu, Shepherd and Batsirai Kezia (Eds). Forthcoming 2023. Decolonising Media and Communication Studies Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. New York: Rou[tledge.

Book chapters:

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2023. Monitoring the Fourth Estate: A critical analyses of the role of audiences in watchdogging journalists, in Matsilele, Trust; Mpofu, Shepherd and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory and Newsmaking Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

• Mpofu, Shepherd, Mutsvairo, Bruce and Matsilele, Trust. 2023. Whistle-blower journalism and the modification of journalism profession: A case of Baba Jukwa in Zimbabwe. In Saba Bebawi (ed), Different Global Journalisms. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

• Matsilele, Trust; Mpofu, Shepherd and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. Diasporic Media and the Appropriation of Technologies: The Case of Nehanda Radio and Zimbabwean Politics in Matsilele, Trust; Mpofu, Shepherd and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory and Newsmaking Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Marginal societies online: A critical appreciation of genocide and its politics in cyberspace. In Ndlovu, M and Mlotshwa, K. (Eds). The Idea of Matabeleland in Cyberspace: Genealogies, Discourses and Epistemic Struggles. Pennsylvania: Lexington Books. pp. 3-15.

• Mpofu, Shepherd and Matsilele, Trust. 2023. They steal our jobs and our women and sell drugs to our youths: Hybrid-media framing of South Africa’s ‘criminal non-nationals’. In Innocent Moyo and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.) Planetary human entanglements and politics of living together: Identities, borders, migration and citizenships. Palgrave. Pp. 103-123.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. His excellency, His Eternity and His outraged citizens: An analysis of the Big Man syndrome and internet shut-downs in Africa. In Farook Kperogi (ed), Digital Dissidence and Social Media Censorship in Africa. Routledge. Pp. 37-58.
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Matsilele, Trust. 2022. They steal our jobs and our women and sell drugs to our youths: Hybrid-Media framing of South Africa’s ‘criminal non-nationals’. In Innocent Moyo and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.) Planetary human entanglements and politics of living together: Identities, borders, migration and citizenships. Palgrave.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2023. Multiculturalism discourses: Subterranean fault lines in the Rainbow Nation. In Innocent Moyo and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.) Planetary human entanglements and politics of living together: Identities, borders, migration and citizenships. Palgrave. Pp. 143-162.

• Mpofu, Shepherd, Mutsvairo, Bruce and Matsilele, Trust. 2023. Whistle-blower journalism and the modification of journalism profession: A case of Baba Jukwa in Zimbabwe. In Saba Bebawi (ed), Different Global Journalisms. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2023. His excellency, His Eternity and His outraged citizens: An analysis of the Big Man syndrome and internet shut-downs in Africa. In Farook Kperogi (ed), Digital Dissidence and Social Media Censorship in Africa. Routledge. Pp. 37-58.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Marginal societies online: A critical appreciation of genocide and its politics in cyberspace. In Ndlovu, M and Mlotshwa, K. (Eds). The Idea of Matabeleland in Cyberspace: Genealogies, Discourses and Epistemic Struggles. Pennsylvania: Lexington Books. pp. 3-15.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Multiculturalism discourses: Subterranean fault lines in the Rainbow Nation. In Innocent Moyo and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.) Planetary human entanglements and politics of living together: Identities, borders, migration and citizenships. Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Mugabeism otherwise? A critical reflection on toxic leadership and Zimbabwe’s "New Dispensation", In Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena, Gibson Ncube (eds) Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe Socio-Political Transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa. Routledge. Pp. 52-66.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2021. Ridicule and humour in the Global South: Theorising politics of laughter in the social media age. In Mpofu, Shepherd (ed). The politics of laughter in the social media age: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1-19.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2021. ‘If ever I offended you I am sorry’: Black Twitectives, body shaming and disparagement humour in South Africa. In Mpofu, Shepherd (ed). The politics of laughter in the social media age: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 215-251.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2021. Social media and COVID19: Taking humour during pandemics seriously. In Mpofu, Shepherd (ed). Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1-16
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2021. Social media memes, commentary and health disasters: Listerosis and Covid-19 in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 19-45.
• Shepherd, Mpofu. 2021. Dark humour, ubuntu and the COVID-19 pandemic: A case of subaltern humoring of political elite deaths on social media. Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 319-346.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2021. Of beaches, monkeys and good old days: How social media race-talk is dismantling the ‘rainbow nation’ in Mare, Admire and Jacintha Muswede, Media and Conflict in Africa. Routledge.
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Matsilele, Trust. 2020. Social media and the concept of dissidence in Zimbabwean politics. In Ndlovu Gatsheni S.J. and Ruhanya, P. The history of political transition in Zimbabwe: From Mugabe to Mnangagwa. Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Mare, Admire. 2020. #ThisFlag: Social media and cyber-protests in Zimbabwe. (pp. 153-172). In Martin Ndlela, Social Media and Elections in Africa Vol 2. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Muswede, Thabiso and Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. Medical xenophobia in South Africa. In Moyo, Dumisani and Mpofu, Shepherd. Co-edited Book Project. Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Moyo, Dumisani and Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. Mediation, Migration and Xenophobia: Critical Reflections on the Crisis of Representing the Other in an Increasingly Intolerant World. Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2019. Afro-Orientalism in the Global village: Global Media imaginations of South Africa and Africa in the coverage of the 2010 World Cup. In Michael J. Gennaro and Saheed Aderinto (Eds) Sport in Africa.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. ‘Zimbabwe’s diasporic new media and conversations on conflict: A case of Zimbabwe genocide and new media debates’, pp. 205-221, In Ogunyemi, Ola (Ed.) Media, Diaspora and Conflict. Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2016. ‘Blogging, feminism and the politics of participation: The case of Her Zimbabwe’, pp 271-294 In Mutsvairo, Bruce (Ed). Digital Activism in the Social Media Era: Critical Reflections on Emerging Trends in sub-Saharan Africa. Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2016. ‘Blogging, feminism and the politics of participation: The case of Her Zimbabwe’, pp 271-294, In Mutsvairo, Bruce (Ed). Digital Activism in the Social Media Era: Critical Reflections on Emerging Trends in sub-Saharan Africa. Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2015. ‘Transnational public spheres and Deliberative Politics in
• Zimbabwe’, pp. 34-52. In Ogunyemi, Ola (Ed) Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora. London: Palgrave.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2014. ‘Memory, national identity and freedom of expression in the
• · Information age: Discussing the taboo in the Zimbabwean public sphere’, In Solo, A. M. G (Ed) Handbook of Research on Political Activism in the Information Age. Pennsylvania: IGI Global Publications.

Edited books

1. Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust; Tshuma Lungile A; and Msimanga, Mbongeni J. Forthcoming 2023. Media, social movements and protest cultures in Africa. Rowman and Littlefield: Maryland.
2. Mphathisi Ndlovu, Lungile Tshuma and Shepherd Mpofu. Forthcoming 2023. Remembering Mass Atrocities in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.
3. Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. New Journalism Ecologies in East And Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory And Newsmaking Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.
4. Mpofu, Shepherd. (Ed). 2021. The politics of laughter in the social media age: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan.
5. Mpofu, Shepherd. (Ed). 2021. Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan.
6. Moyo, Dumisani and Mpofu, Shepherd. (Eds). 2020. Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust; Tshuma Lungile A; and Msimanga, Mbongeni J. Forthcoming 2024. Media, social movements and protest cultures in Africa. Palgrave
• Mudavanhu, S., Mpofu, Shepherd and Batsirai Kezia (Eds). 2024.Decolonising Media and Communication Studies Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. New York: Routledge.
• Mphathisi Ndlovu, Lungile Tshuma and Shepherd Mpofu. 2024. Remembering Mass Atrocities in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.
• Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust and Moyo, Dumisani. 2023. New Journalism Ecologies in East And Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory And Newsmaking Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

• Mpofu, Shepherd, Mnisi, Sifiso and Makgoba Metji.  2023. ‘Money does not stay, it is a visitor': Conspicuous consumption and the fleeting riches in pursuit of elusive happiness. Journal of Asian and African Studies. DOI: 10.1177/00219096231173385/ ID: JAS-22-0767.R2).

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2023. Ruling from the grave?: The political instrumentalization of Robert Mugabe’s corpse in contemporary Zimbabwean politics. Journal of Asian and African Studies. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00219096221120925
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2023. Ruling from the grave?: The political instrumentalization of Robert Mugabe’s corpse in contemporary Zimbabwean politics. Journal of Asian and African Studies.

• Nenjerama, Tinashe T. & Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Populism from Below and Social Movements: A Case of Zimbabwe’s #ThisFlag Movement.  Journal of Asian and African Studies 57(4): 693-711.

• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Religious and political intersections: The instrumentalisation of Christianity during Zimbabwe’s 2018 presidential elections. Canadian Journal of African Studies 56(2): 383-406.
• Shepherd Mpofu. 2022. Booty Power Politics: The Social-mediated Consumption of Black Female Bodies in Popular Culture, Journal of African Cultural Studies, 34(2): 186-204.
• Nenjerama, Tinashe T. & Mpofu, Shepherd. 2022. Populism from Below and Social Movements: A Case of Zimbabwe’s #ThisFlag Movement. Journal of Asian and African Studies 57(4): 693-711.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. (Ed). 2021. The politics of laughter in the social media age: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. (Ed). 2021. Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mpofu, Shepherd; Ndlovu, Mphathisi and Tshuma, Lungile. 2021. The artist and filmmaker as activists, archivists and the work of memory: A case of the Zimbabwean genocide. African Journal of Rhetoric 13(1): 46-76.
• Matsilele, Trust, Mpofu, Shepherd, Msimanga, Mbongeni, & Tshuma, Lungile. 2021. Transnational hashtag protest movements and emancipatory politics in Africa: A three country study. Global Media Journal – German Edition, 11(2), DOI: https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.51029.
• Siziba, Gugulethu, Mpofu, Shepherd and Ndlovu Mphathisi. 2021. The Beginning of an End? Online (and Offline) Popular Resistance against Mugabe’s Strained Legitimacy in the Post-GNU Zimbabwe. African Renaissance 18(4): 31-53.
• Mpofu, Shepherd; Matsilele, Trust and Nyawasha, Tawanda, S. 2021. The iconography of persuasion: An analysis of political manifestos and messaging of top three parties in South Africa’s 2019 elections. Communicare: Journal for Communication Sciences in Southern Africa 40(1): 67-88.
• Moyo, Dumisani and Mpofu, Shepherd. (Eds). 2020. Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mathobela, Semang Ramasela Lydia; Mpofu, Shepherd and Mrubula-Ngwenya, Samukezi. 2020. Coming out of the closet? Audience reactions to the heteronormative disruptive advertising. African Journal of Gender, Society & Development 3(2): 75-102
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2019. For a nation to progress genocide victims must ‘move on’: A case of Zimbabwe’s social media discourses of resistance. African Identities, 17(2): 108-129.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2019. Jesus comes to South Africa: Black Twitter as citizen journalism in South African politics. African Journalism Studies, 40(1): 67-90.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2019. Art as journalism in Zimbabwe: The case of Owen Maseko’s banned Zimbabwean genocide exhibition. Journalism Studies, 20(1): 60-78.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2019. Pornographic intersections: race and genitalia in South African political art in the age of digital media. Critical African Studies. 11(2): 230-261
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Nenjerama, Tinashe T. 2018. Imaginations and narrations of the nation: The music of Raymond Majongwe and Brian Muteki in the identity construction of post-2000 Zimbabwe. Muzika 15(I2): 75-94.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. Making heroes, (un)making the nation?: ZANU-PF’s imaginations of the Heroes Acre, heroes and construction of identity in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2015. African Identities 15(1): 62-78.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. Disruption as a communicative strategy: The case of #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall students’ protests. Journal of African Media Studies, 15(1): 351-373.
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Chasi, Colin. 2017. Mandelaism in newspaper advertising that ‘pays tribute’ to Mandela after his death. A Special Issue in African and International Creative Imagination: Journal of Literary Studies, 33(4): 1-19.
• Mpofu, Shepherd and Barnabas, Shanade. 2016. Citizen journalism and moral panics: a consideration of ethics in the 2015 South African xenophobic attacks. Digital African Review: A special issue of African Journalism Studies 37(4): 115-136.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2016. Participation, citizen journalism in the contestations of identity and national symbols: A case of Zimbabwe’s national heroes and the Heroes’ Acre. African Journalism Studies. 37(3): 85-106.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2016. Zimbabwe’s state-controlled public media and the mediation of the 1980s genocide 30 years on. Journal of African Media Studies. 8(2): 145-165.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2016. Toxification of national holidays and national identity in Zimbabwe's post-2000 nationalism. Journal of African Cultural Studies 28(1): 28-43.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2015. When the subaltern speaks: citizen journalism and genocide ‘victims’’ voices online. Digital African Review: A special issue of African Journalism Studies, 36(4): 82-101.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2013. Social media and the politics of ethnicity in Zimbabwe. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(1): 115-122.
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2013. New media, old news: Journalism and democracy in the digital age. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(3): 161-163 (Book Review).
• Mpofu, Shepherd. 2011. African media and the digital public sphere. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 32(1): 104-106 (Book Review).

• Goldern Key
• NRF Rating Research Funding R60 000
• AHP
• Merit Award, University of the Witwatersrand.
• Editorial Board: Digital Journalism.
• Editorial Board: Journal of Global Diaspora and Media.

• New Journalism ecologies
• Protest cultures in Africa
• Decolonising journalism, media and film studies
• New media and Identity construction
• Social Media and gender in Africa

Encyclopaedia Entries

1. Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. Audiences. In D. Merskin (Ed.), The SAGE international encyclopaedia of mass media and society (Vol. 1, pp. 116-118). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n52
2. Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. Twitter. In D. Merskin (Ed.), The SAGE international encyclopaedia of mass media and society (Vol. 1, pp. 1802-1803). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n695
3. Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. Zimbabwe. In D. Merskin (Ed.), The SAGE international encyclopaedia of mass media and society (Vol. 1, pp. 1926-1928). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n748
4. Mpofu, Shepherd. 2020. South Africa. In D. Merskin (Ed.), The SAGE international encyclopaedia of mass media and society (Vol. 1, pp. 1635-1637). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n632.