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David Gyimah

Dr David Gyimah

(he/him)

Teams and roles for David Gyimah

Overview

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah is a filmmaker and Reader/ Associate Professor at the School of Journalism, Culture and Media. His career over three and half decades  covers Innovative filmmaking; AI; television and radio in various position at Channel 4, WTN, BBC World Service, Radio 4, Breakfast and Newsight as a reporter, political and news producer and videojournalist. 

In 2026 he was selected in a landmark celebration of the 100 most influential British-Ghanaians shaping the United Kingdom and the world. The UK BlackStar List included: Actress Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton); Actor. Idris Elba; Rapper, Stormzy and Kanya King, MOBO Awards Founder.

He has been a creative director in advertising, launched or been involved in successful start start-ups  e.g. Justgiving.com, and was a selected artist-in-residence at London's Southbank Centre.

He teaches on the MA International Journalism (MAIJ) programme leading in Foreign News Reporting (as a former freelance correspondent in South Africa (92-94)) and Emerging Journalism (aka Story Lab/ AI), as well delivering conceptual frameworks for MA dissertations in Information Gathering, and guiding students towards creating their final projects.

He is the pioneer behind Cinema Journalism which builds on his past as one of first NUJ (National Union of Journalists) accredited videojournalists in the UK. Cinema journalism, a twenty year research study, which includes his PhD, details an advance on videojournalism that blends factual cinema and videojournalism in which practitioners have won high profile awards. 

He’s the EDI lead for his school and is interested in PhD supervision across Innovation, AI and storytelling, culture and Black diaspora.

More on Dr Gyimah in his biography.

 

email address is [email protected]

Publication

2024

2023

2022

2020

Articles

Book sections

Monographs

Biography

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah is a filmmaker and Reader/ Associate Professor at the School of Journalism, Culture and Media. His career over three and half decades  covers Innovative filmmaking; AI; television and radio in various position at Channel 4, WTN, BBC World Service, Radio 4, Breakfast and Newsight as a reporter, political and news producer and videojournalist. 

In 2026 he was selected in a landmark celebration of the 100 most influential British-Ghanaians shaping the United Kingdom and the world. The UK BlackStar List included Actress Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton), Actor Idris Elba, Actor, Stormzy, Rapper, and Kanya King, MOBO Awards Founder.

He has been a creative director in advertising, launched or been involved in successful start start-ups  e.g. Justgiving.com, and was a selected artist-in-residence at London's Southbank Centre.

He teaches on the MA International Journalism (MAIJ) programme leading in Foreign News Reporting (as a former freelance correspondent in South Africa (92-94)) and Emerging Journalism (aka Story Lab/ AI), as well delivering conceptual frameworks for MA dissertations in Information Gathering, and guiding students towards creating their final projects.

He was a board member for SParc Cardiff University's start-up centre), a previous co-i for the £50m Clwstwr and Media Cymru helping to reshape Research and Development into their creative industries, to which he was generously acknowledged in their publication. Dr Gyimah is a TPC (technical program committee) member of Emerging Technology Conference 2027 (Adelaide University)  https://emergingtechconference.com.au/

He is the pioneer behind Cinema Journalism which buildson his past as one of thirty first NUJ (National Union of Journalists) endorsed videojournaists in the UK. Cinema journalism, a twenty year research study, which includes his PhD, details a new form of journalism that blends factual cinema and videojournalism in which practitioners have won high profile awards. 

Dr Gyimah was previously at Westminster University where he led their news, documentary, and online coding courses (one of the first MA’s in the UK) before driving the innovative interdisciplinary disLAB, (the digital storytelling LAB).

He has wide and deep expertise in AI and story production; writing; creativity and entrepreneurialism; politics, youth and culture; and history and diaspora Black cultural archives. His PhD practice of Cinema Journalism uncovers the cognition and  emerging style of journalism building on Robert Drew's Direct Cinema. It coalesces videojournalism and cinema. It has drawn wide favourable comments from industry experts such as Filmmaker Mark Cousins  and Presenter Jon Snow.

Dr Gyimah has travelled to, and trained journalists from around the world in Russia, India, China. Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, South Africa, across Europe and America, and working with outfits, such as the Institute of War and Peace and UN. Working with the Press Association he trained first UK regional newspaper journalists to become videojournaliststs and trained staff at the FT and Chicago Sun Times.

His knowledge and experience of AI and storytelling has led to invitations to UK AI expert conferences e.g. Storytellers + Machine (2024), where he presented the use GenAI in creating archival stories. He’s been the visiting Asper Professor at The University of British Columbia and became involved with AI in 2014.

His AI films have, at request, been presented to Channel 4's Board of Directors and the British Screen Forum. In July 2024 he presented “Empowered” an AI-film about empowering Black women to the leading UK Black Business Entrepreneurs conference at the Natwest Conference Centre, London. His work has won grants e.g. Innovative UK, to develop storytelling programmes and create the first global start-up journal as editor-in-chief. Media Hyphenates brings together diverse students and businesses to creative innovative products and capture the journey in long form journalism using AI to visualise the publication.

Dr Gyimah came up with the idea, and co-founded the popular diversity journal Representology  – between Cardiff and Birmingham University’s Sir Lenny Henry Centre. He is a prolific writer on Medium, named as one their leading writers in journalism and innovation. He has published articles for the European Human Rights Law Review (EHRLR), The Journal of Radio and Audio Media's 100 years of the BBC edition on the history of Black Radio Archive (2024). His own archive was deemed historically important by global archive body FIAT/IFTA. Black Lives Matter: The fight for identity in the media was published Breaking the News: 500 Years of News in Britain (2022) in which Dr Gyimah was one of the exhibition's advisors. He was co-author on The future of journalism in a (post-Covid-19 world (2021)), and committee chair for the global three-day conference.

Dr Gyimah is a regular conference speaker (since 2005) with his knowledge published in publications, such as Apple, Google, The Online Journalism Handbook; The Broadcast Journalism Handbook, The Documentary Handbook, and Reimagining Journalism in Post-Truth World.  His expertise has been requested for reviewing AHRC bids, Journals e.g. Journalism Practice, Google's €6m European News Initiative fund, and The Royal Television Society Television News awards. He is a board member of Sbarc - Cardiff's Innovation park, and is the recipient of several global awards that include: the Knight Batten for innovation in journalism for creating the first video-online platform, and international Videojournalism Awards from Berlin.

He’s the EDI lead for his school, and is interested in PhD supervision across Innovation, AI and storytelling, culture and Black diaspora.

email address is [email protected]

News articles

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah recognised in inaugural list celebrating influential British Ghanaians

Academic nominated to UK Black Stars 2026 list

30 March 2026

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah recognised in inaugural list celebrating influential British Ghanaians

Second edition of Representology combines research with industry insights

Call for greater focus on media diversity

06 July 2021

Second edition of Representology combines research with industry insights

Research aims to create an industry that reflects all parts of society

Sir Lenny Henry leads media diversity journal launch

30 March 2021

Research aims to create an industry that reflects all parts of society

Academics and industry professionals investigate how the media represents the population it serves

Diversity in the UK’s media industry under the spotlight

08 December 2020

Academics and industry professionals investigate how the media represents the population it serves

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