Scholarly Publications - Communication and Design

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/115581

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Open Access
Public attitudes and politicians’ discourses regarding the Syrian diaspora in Türkiye: Implications for the C4D model
(Intellect Discover, 2026-01-24) Özdora, Emel; Baş, Özen; Ogan, Christine
This study conducts a secondary analysis of national survey data and examines online public discourses regarding Turkish presidential candidates during a contentious election campaign. We explore the relationship between Turkish citizens’ attitudes toward the 3.2 million registered Syrians and the refugee-related messages conveyed by key politicians. Our findings indicate that a majority of Turkish citizens have negative attitudes toward Syrian refugees. Additionally, the discourse shared by presidential candidates on their social media accounts reflects these prevailing negative public sentiments and lacks cohesion or communication for development (C4D) messaging. Based on C4D principles, we suggest that the absence or miscommunication of refugee integration and development initiatives by government institutions may have heightened tensions between the host community and the Syrian diaspora in Türkiye.
Open Access
Bridging the divide: an interdisciplinary analysis of trust in science
(SAGE Publications, 2025-08-26) Zeybek Kabakçı, G.; Kara, U. Y.; Baydar Çavdar, G.; Toros, Emre
For several reasons, trust in science in recent years has eroded, throwing serious doubts on once-reliable scientific resources. Although multiple scientific disciplines try to explain the causes and consequences of this worrying decline, we have only scant knowledge about these disciplines’ interconnected arguments. Focusing on this niche, this study aims to bridge the literature from diverse academic disciplines and identify dominant themes by utilising a cutting-edge methodology.This attempt is crucial since we need a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors influencing public trust in science, allowing us to approach the problem from multiple angles and enabling the crafting of evidence-based policies that better resonate with the public and are more likely to be effective in restoring trust. Hence, this study contributes to the existing literature both substantially and methodologically. Substantially, we show that there are dominant recurring research themes across the disciplines, such as science communication, compliance with scientific advice, and public engagement. Methodologically, we contend that identifying these vital crosscutting themes can only be possible by combining state-of-the-art computational techniques with conventional qualitative content analysis.
Open Access
Kulturkampf to partykampf? democratic backsliding and democratic satisfaction in Turkey
(Routledge, 2025) Toros, Seçil; Zeybek Kabakçı, Gökçe; Toros, Emre
This article examines why satisfaction with democracy can remain comparatively high in Turkey despite sustained democratic erosion, focusing on the joint role of cultural conflict and partisan identity. It advances the concept of Partykampf, a partisan–cultural fusion that conditions democratic attitudes and satisfaction in this particular case. Interaction models show that satisfaction is not explained by culture or partisanship alone: alignment with the governing bloc strongly amplifies the positive effect of traditional–religious cultural alignment and strong partisan identity, whereas equally strong opposition partisans report markedly lower satisfaction. We conclude that Partykampf offers a powerful lens for understanding how legitimacy perceptions persist during backsliding by reframing democracy through partisan success rather than procedural standards.
Open Access
Global perspectives on science, polarization, and populism special issue introduction
(Oxford University Press, 2025-03-11) Dal, Ayşenur; Nisbet, Erik C.
We review the current state of the global public opinion research on the relationship between populism, political polarization, and public opinion about science. We highlight key findings on how both constructs shape trust in science generally and specifically about global topics such as climate change and COVID-19. The article also provides an overview of the 11 papers appearing in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research special issue centered on Global Perspectives on Science, Polarization, and Populism.
Open Access
Contextualizing Gasman (1998)
(Intellect Ltd., 2025-05-21) Kennedy-Karpat, Colleen
In addition to theoretical and cultural approaches, this article argues that Lynne Ramsay’s short film Gasman (1998) is an excellent text for a film studies course dedicated to formalist analysis. However, the conditions of close formal study can produce notable phenomenological effects among the students that emerge through humour and commentary expressed in the form of popular internet memes.
Open Access
The role of exposure to violence in citizens’ relative trust in media types for conflict-related information and news
(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2025-08-09) Dal, Ayşenur; Akcinaroglu, Seden; Tokdemir, Efe
Media serve as vital sources of information for conflict contexts, where civilians often confront violence threatening their safety, emotional well-being and survival. Our research explores the impact of exposure to conflict-related violence on people’s trust in different media types regarding conflict-related information and news (CRIN). We particularly investigate the factors influencing citizens’ relative trust in media within conflict settings, with a particular focus on how exposure to violence resulting from conflict conditions (i.e. involvement) and perceptions of state efficacy in security provision (i.e. blame attribution) shape trust in legacy vs social media. Based on a nationwide survey in Türkiye’s conflict zone, they discover that previous exposure to violence alone does not significantly affect media trust for seeking CRIN. Instead, the influence of exposure to violence is positively associated with trusting social media more for CRIN, conditional on the belief that the state is ineffective in providing security for its citizens. This finding suggests that the combination of exposure to violence and a perception of the state’s inadequacy in addressing an ongoing conflict may drive people to follow the developments regarding a conflict from social media. The findings offer substantial insights into how individual media choices are shaped within the larger framework of a conflict environment, utilizing original data collection from a real-world conflict setting
Open Access
Fake news online and beyond
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2025-11-07) Özçetin, Burak
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025, disinformation and misinformation rank among the most acute challenges the world will face over the next 2 years. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (Newman et al., 2025), based on representative data from 48 countries, confirms that this concern is widely shared. Fifty-eight percent of respondents report being worried about distinguishing truth from falsehoods online when consuming news; the corresponding figures are 73% in Africa and 54% in Europe. Social media platforms are regarded as the most dangerous sources of false news—Facebook (49%), TikTok (48%), X (34%), Instagram (32%), YouTube (30%), and WhatsApp (21%) (p. 23). Prior work shows that lies spread faster than truth, and fake news online diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth (Vosoughi et al., 2018). This review essay discusses two books that treat the subject with considerable depth.
Open Access
Understanding the impact of anger-evoking and efficacy-eliciting tweets in White support for the BLM movement
(Routledge, 2025-10-16) Baş, Özen; Kim, Minchul; Grabe, Maria Elizabeth
Waning support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement among White Americans motivated two experiments to identify the potential of social media messages for political engagement. Scholarship on the social psychology of collective action provided theoretical grounding for investigating how people respond to information about social injustice committed against a trait group they do not belong to. The experiments explored the potential of tweets about Black Lives Matter protests to elicit collective action among Caucasians. A between-subjects experiment with 4 conditions (low activation, anger-evoking, efficacy-eliciting, and co-activation) was employed with collective action intent as the dependent variable. Findings show that social media messages (tweets) that elicit anger and efficacy states influenced collective action intent among White people in support of the BLM movement. Importantly, this study shows that anger and efficacy states follow two distinct pathways to political engagement as a result of tweet content.
Open Access
How do religions and religiosity matter for climate anxiety?
(MDPI AG, 2025-02-24) Toros, Emre
During the last decade, the discussions about climate change have evolved beyond technical and technological debates, and politicians and religious leaders have started to acknowledge the complexity of the matter more frequently than ever. These discussions aptly underlined the inadequacy of the offered technical solutions to problems due to climate change, which are bound to social and psychological barriers and evaluated through the lenses of existing culture, values, and beliefs, which can hinder appropriate responses. The current study problematises this puzzle by exploring variations in ideological positions, religious affiliations, and religiosity levels and their interactions with climate anxiety. The findings indicate that differing religious affiliations and religiosity levels are robust predictors of variations in climate anxiety. Moreover, their interactions and ideological positions also effectively explain the variations in perceptions related to climate anxiety. These findings provide critical insights into how religious and ideological dimensions influence responses to climate issues, offering practical implications for policymakers.
Open Access
Firewalls have ears: how horizontal privacy regulation influences online political expression in Russia
(University of Southern California * Annenberg Center for Communication, 2024-05) Dal, Ayşenur
In authoritarian settings, dealing with privacy threats involving vertical (i.e., institutional) and horizontal (i.e., social) intrusions is an essential element of the day- to-day negotiation of online activism risks. Accordingly, this study investigates the role that horizontal privacy regulation efforts play in citizens' decision-making about online political expressions (OPE) on controversial topics under digital repression. Using a web-based survey of Internet users (N = 992) conducted in 2018, the findings reveal that, while horizontal privacy regulation significantly predicts a weaker intention to engage in OPE about governmental corruption in Russia, this negative effect is amplified by how much one cares about others' judgments about their position on corruption.
Open Access
Analyzing media content in Turkiye and the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic considering the dimensions of quadruple helix collaboration processes
(MDPI AG, 2024-09-02) Peschke, Lutz; Seyfafjehi, Seyedehshahrzad; Dündar, Irmak; Ağca, Yasemin Gümüş
The outbreak of COVID-19 between 2020 and 2022 highlighted the significant role of news media as a tool of communication among different social actors. Due to the novelty of the virus, most citizens turned to official news outlets to obtain reliable information about the disease and pandemic regulations. Therefore, a content analysis of news coverage in different countries provides insight into their Quadruple Helix dynamics, which reflects new patterns of knowledge democracy under consideration of the media-based public sphere. This article aims to trace the patterns of prevalent topics related to COVID-19 news in Turkish and British mainstream news agencies between September 2020 and March 2022. By deploying content analysis, this research endeavours to elicit public discourses created around the pandemic. These media agencies engaged in critical commentary on the pandemic situation and the policies enacted during this period, updating citizens with the latest information. However, the differences in the political and social structures of each country influence their Quadruple Helix knowledge exchange, which has a high impact on transformation processes.
Open Access
Relational geometries in our grand despair (2011) and Jules et Jim (1962)
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2024-12-01) Kennedy Karpat, Colleen; Öz, Seda; Can, Taner
The festival success Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz / Our Grand Despair (2011) offers a rare example of a contemporary Turkish novel adapted primarily for transnational audiences. Author Barış Bıçakçı and director Seyfi Teoman present a love triangle that recalls French New Wave classic Jules et Jim (1962), another adaptation of popular fiction. The triangle in Our Grand Despair marks cultural differences as well as social progress in Türkiye and in world cinema. This chapter considers Our Grand Despair as a self-adaptation from novel to screen and as a reconfiguration of the love triangle for its time and place.
Open Access
Putting your best self or no self at all? an analysis of young adult's dating app profiles in Turkey
(Springer New York LLC, 2025-01-20) Cöbek, Gözde; Baş, Özen; Audry, Aylin Sunam; İnceoğlu, İrem; Kaya, Yiğit Bahadır; Özenç, Aslı
Since the widespread use of dating apps across the globe, presenting one’s best self has become a prior issue in attracting potential partners. The literature gener- ally focuses on a single group’s profiles on a single app and examines the role of gender and sexual orientation in putting one’s best face and body or lying about it. However, very few studies draw attention to the role of cultural geography in profile construction, which may suggest that presenting a self in the first place, or self-dis- closure, becomes a more significant issue than presenting an ideal self in some cul- tural settings. This study examines young adults’ profiles on five dating apps popular in Turkey, where there is a powerful social stigma around LGBTI+ individuals and online dating and a sharp cultural division between Eastern and Western regions. It aims to understand the role of cultural geography across users from different genders and sexual orientations in self-disclosure. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 1976 dating app profiles collected across the country, our study finds statistically significant differences in self-disclosure between men and women, heterosexual and non-heterosexual users, and metropolitan and non-metropolitan individuals. In other words, showing one’s face, body, and other verbal information that might reveal one’s identity is highly influenced by one’s gender, sexual orientation, and geographical location. Our research contributes to the literature by not only under- lining the significance of cultural geography but also revealing the intersecting role of gender, sexual orientation, and geographical location in self-disclosure.
Open Access
The future of gender and gender equality online: a scenario analysis of ımaginaries on gender and social media platforms
(Polish Communication Association, 2024-07-04) Lagrange, Babette; Van Bauwel, Sofie; Biltereyst, Daniel; Cannizzaro, Sara; Toms, Justine; Ağca, Yasemin; Andersson, Ingrid; Bjorner, Emma; Karadimitriou, Achilleas; Odstrčilová, Klara; Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos; Risi, Elisabetta
The emergence and growth of the internet and social media platforms have engendered significant transformations in everyday life, affecting not only society’s most innermost life but also its structural organization. This digital realm impacts gender equality, giving rise to spaces for feminist community building and activism, but at the same time enabling online gender harassment and violence. Our aim was to construct possible scenarios of the future, focusing on foreseeable consequences of social media on gender (in)equality in Europe. Using the Delphi+ method, we generated diverse future scenarios envisioning the intersection of gender and social media platforms. Through an analysis of these scenarios, we identified three recurring themes situated on a continuum from utopian to dystopian perspectives, including various positions in relation to the question of social media as safe or unsafe spaces. This study then provides us with possible imaginaries in relation to gender and social media platforms.
Open Access
Futures of algorithms and choices: structuration of algorithmic imaginaries and digital platforms in Europe
(Polish Communication Association, 2024-07) Hroch, Milos; Kompatsiaris, Panos; Grassmuck, Volker; Moreno, Jose; Peschke, Lutz; Jirak, Jan; Poddar, Debashmita
The increasing impact of algorithmically driven processes on human societies, which can exacerbate political, economic, and cultural asymmetries, raises questions about reducing human agency by constraining platform structures. We draw on the theoretical concept of algo-rithmic imaginary, which captures users' appropriations and ideas of these processes. In this paper, we focus on the dynamics between agency and structure in algorithmic imaginaries regarding the future of digital media platforms in Europe. The paper takes structuration theory as a theoretical starting point and employs methods of futures studies to analyze how the future is constructed in scenarios developed by a diversity of experts participating in a series of workshops. The future scenarios analysis is mapped around four actors, namely platform users, platform corporations, algorithms and institutions. By considering the role of various actors, particularly institutions, and their interdependencies this paper contributes to more balanced conceptualizations of algo-rithmic imaginaries, which tend to be centered around users' perspectives.
Open Access
Using patient-generated health data more efficient and effectively to facilitate the implementation of value-based healthcare in the EU – Innovation report
(Research Network of Computational and Structural Biotechnology, 2024-12) Folkvord, Frans; Carlson, Jim Ingebretsen; Ottaviano, Manuel; Carvajal, Diego; Gonzalez, Liss Hernandez; Schoot, Rens Van De; Turk, Eva; Piera-jiménez, Jordi; Pontes, Caridad; Ramiro-pareta, Marina; Carot-sans, Gerard; Podovšovnik, Eva; Levašič, Vesna; Scheckenbach, Kathrin; Wagenmann, Martin; Szpisjak, Aron; Eliasen, Bogi; Wakim, Joe-max; Ernst, Martin; Prinzellner, Yvonne; Bol, Nadine; He, Linwei; Krahmer, Emiel; Navarro, Clàudia; Juan, Laia; Guerri, Davide; Pinna, Laura; Genovese, Carmela; Benetti, Luciano; Macagnano, Chiara; Chiarugi, Franco; Peeters, Johannes; Pedullà, Ludovico; Brichetto, Giampaolo; Zaratin, Paola; Peschke, Seldag Gunes; Peschke, Lutz; Fico, Giuseppe
Healthcare services and products are rapidly changing due to the development of new technologies, offering relevant solutions to improve patient outcomes. Patient-Generated Health Data and knowledge-sharing across the European Union (EU) has a great potential of making healthcare provision more effective and efficient by putting the patient at the centre of the healthcare process. While such initiatives have been taken before, a uniting and overarching approach is still missing. The EU-funded IMPROVE project will develop an evidencebased and actual framework to effectively leverage the added value of people-centred integrated healthcare solutions, using predominantly PROMs, PPI, PREMs, and other Patient-Generated Health Data (PGHD). As a result, the project facilitates the effective and efficient implementation of Value-Based Healthcare across the EU by putting the patient central in the healthcare process.
Open Access
Les filles de Méliès: l’exception culturelle, analogue aesthetics and women filmmakers of le cinéma-monde
(Routledge, 2024-10-11) Aras, Zeynep; Kennedy-Karpat, Colleen
This article examines transnational francophone films from writer-directors Marjane Satrapi and Chloé Mazlo, filmmakers who show how the politics of l’exception culturelle [the cultural exception] have made French cinema a multiply exceptional force in world cinema. The analogue effects in Poulet aux prunes/Chicken with Plums (2011) and Sous le ciel d’Alice/Skies of Lebanon (2020) mark an aesthetic resistance to the homogenising force of digital photorealism while also reflecting an approach to filmmaking pioneered by Georges Méliès, particularly his ground-breaking work in set design and cinematography. As women filmmakers, their reliance on practical aesthetics to present stories set outside l’Hexagone (mainland France) represent the French commitment to the diversity of cinéma-monde. This article argues that these filmmakers and their films have benefitted from policies rooted in l’exception culturelle while expanding the sense of ‘exception’ in a French context to mean films directed by women, films featuring analogue effects and films that reflect transnational identities and cross-cultural collaboration. Both Poulet aux prunes and Sous le ciel d’Alice frame an expanded logic for l’exception culturelle that has shaped more than three decades of contemporary French cinema.
Open Access
Signaling silence: Affective and cognitive responses to risks of online activism about corruption in an authoritarian context
(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2022) Dal, Ayşenur; Nisbet, Erik C.; Kamenchuk, Olga
Networked authoritarian governments’ use of digital repression creates uncertainty and amplifies risk signals for ordinary citizens using social media for political expression. Employing theoretical frameworks from the risk and decision-making literature, we experimentally examine how citizens perceive and respond to the risks of low-effort forms of online activism in an authoritarian context. Our online field experiment demonstrates that emotional responses to the regime’s risk signals about online activism drive decision-making about contentious online political expression as compared with cognitive appraisal of risk. Moreover, the relationship between anticipatory emotions and contentious online political expression varies significantly depending on individuals’ involvement with the controversial topic of expression. We discuss the importance of emotions and citizen risk judgments for understanding online activism within networked authoritarian contexts.
Open Access
Managing pandemic communication online Turkish Ministry of Health’s digital communication strategies during COVID-19
(University of Southern California, 2023) Aksak Özdora, Emel; Dikmen, E. Ş.; Kılıç, N. P.
Health ministries around the world have used online communication, specifically social media platforms, to provide information, communicate warnings to the public, and influence behavior according to recommended health precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Grounded in agenda-setting theory, this study analyzes Turkey’s Ministry of Health’s (MoH) social media communication strategies and practices during COVID-19 through a content analysis of the content shared via its official Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts from February to June 2020, focusing on the first 120 days of the pandemic, when it was at its height. Findings reveal that the MoH’s social media activity was mainly driven by Twitter, and the minister of health has become the face of the fight against the pandemic. Results reveal that the government’s efforts to fight against the virus and its prevention measures are among the most popular themes in online communication. The MoH’s social media communication has shown only limited success in community building and network expansion due to inconsistent and ineffective hashtag use, among other weaknesses in the ministry’s use of social media conventions.
Open Access
‘Welcoming’ guests: The role of ideational and contextual factors in public perceptions about refugees and attitudes about their integration
(Uluslararası İlişkiler Konseyi Derneği İktisadi İşletmesi, 2023-12-19) Özen, H. E.; Dal, Ayşenur; Tokdemir, Efe
In this study, we aim to explore the ideational and contextual sources of perceptions about refugees. Contrary to many studies focusing on the interaction with and integration of refugees in developed countries, we examine the effect of social identity and refugee exposure on the perception of refugees in Turkey, which pose a substantive case with a background of ethnic conflict and scarce resources. We contend that social identities provide individuals with cues; however, we argue that identity type and its salience are key to understanding in-group vs. out-group formation processes, hence the perceptions about refugees. Moreover, we argue that socioeconomic status affects an individual’s support for refugee integration, as it challenges the existing status quo of access to scarce resources. Our findings challenge the conventional wisdom in migration studies by employing an original face-to-face survey among over 1,100 respondents in three cities (Istanbul, Diyarbakir, and Gaziantep) in Turkey. We find that those prioritizing national vs. religious identities reveal different levels of perceived threat. Additionally, we show that those belonging to lower-income socioeconomic groups are less supportive of refugee integration when the presence of refugees sets the ground for competition for economic and social resources where they reside.