Vanessa Malila is Head of the Advocacy Impact Programme at the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM). She holds a PhD in communication studies from the University of Leeds, which examines the role of the media as a stakeholder in communications policy formation in Kenya. She was a Postdoc Research Fellow based at the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes University between 2015 and 2016, working within the Mellon Media & Citizenship project. Her areas of interest include the role of the media in social accountability, the use of social media in social accountability, and how to understand social accountability across contexts.