Robin Mansell - Biography#

Robin Mansell is an internationally recognized media and communications scholar with a special (and rare) focus on communication policy and science and technology innovation. She has always been involved in publicly addressing the issues arising from ‘new’ media technologies, ranging from equality to globalization and similar issues, trying to understand the changes required to cope with digital media (including those in law and international communication). Regulation and governance are at the forefront of her concerns. This has resulted in several books, a great number of articles in many different journals and numerous appearances at conferences and other events (often as a keynote speaker).

Mansell has also been very active in international organizations (such as the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) of which she was President and as Chair of the European Communication Policy Research (EuroCPR).

While she holds dual citizenship in Canada and the UK, she has worked (and still does) at major British universities in the field of media and communications (Sussex and now LSE). Her first degree was in psychology from the University of Manitoba (1974). She then obtained two master degrees: first at the LSE, then in Canada at Simon Fraser University where she also earned her doctorate.

In 2007 she was invited to address the UN General Assembly regarding the ability of the internet to break down global barriers (her speech warned that this was not what she anticipated – and she has, in many ways, been proven to be right).

Not only has Mansell been a prolific academic, she also has been involved in senior management roles at the LSE; serving as academic Governor from 2005 until 2010, as the Head of the Media and Communications Department from 2006 until 2009 and in 2017-18. Additionally, she was interim Deputy Director and Provost from 2015 to 2016.