Dr. Charles Asuquo Effiong

MBBS (Sydney), FRACS (Paediatric Surgery)

Dr. Charles Asuquo Effiong is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Film and Carnival Studies, University of Calabar, Nigeria. He started his working career in 2008 as news and feature reporter with Pioneer Extra, an insert Magazine, in the Akwa Ibom State-owned Pioneer Newspapers. From the Pioneer Extra, Dr. Effiong left for Abuja in 2009 to work with D.O.M Communications in Wuse Zone 3, Abuja, publishers of the Nigerian Newsworld Magazine, as a staff reporter. Following his commitment to duty, he was transferred to Akwa Ibom State as the State Correspondent/Editor in the same year. He remained with the media organization until the Nigerian Pilot Newspaper was launched in 2011 from the same stable. He continued in his role as the state correspondent/editor for the two titles until 2013, when he left to take up a lecturing appointment as a pioneer and one of the first four lecturers in the Department of Performing Arts, Akwa Ibom State University. He was in that institution until 2015, when he left as a Lecturer II to pick up an appointment as Lecturer I in his alma mater, the Department of Theatre, Film and Carnival Studies, University of Calabar. Between 2011 and 2012, Dr. Effiong was part of the contributors in a book project titled The Critique that was facilitated by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) and sponsored by the Akwa Ibom State Government. Dr. Charles Effiong is a zealous scholar, whose interest is in media and development studies. He is also enthusiastic about critical theory as it relates to theatre and media studies. His interest in media studies started when he was an undergraduate student; and that is why after his Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2002, and subsequently completion of National youth service scheme, he enrolled for a Master of Arts in Media Arts Studies. Dr Effiong is published in more than seventeen journals, local and foreign, and he also has five book chapters. He has attended a good number of academic conferences. He is member of the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists (SONTA). His hobbies include playing the game of scrabble, watching football and listening to and reading news stories. .