Join the Centre for the Study of Democracy for a talk with Professor Dr Yasemin Giritli İnceoğlu.
This study examines how Turkish media portray refugees, striking a balance between compassion and perceived threat. Refugees are often depicted as passive objects – either recipients of mercy or security risks – while their own voices remain largely unheard. The research highlights the role of digital media in both spreading hate speech and fostering counter-narratives, and examines how gender, class, and ethnicity intersect in these representations. The findings call for ethical journalism that amplifies the voices of refugees and encourages more nuanced, empathetic reporting.
About the speaker
Yasemin Giritli İnceoğlu is professor of Communication and a member of the UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen and of the American Biography Institute.
Yasemin was a visiting scholar at Columbia University (1994) and at the Salzburg Seminar (2003), at New Delhi University Media Studies Center (2014), at EUI-European University Institute (2017) at Birkbeck, University of London (2020-2021) and London School of Economics, Media and Communication Department (2022-2025). She took place in many projects and has published several books: The Persuasion Process in Communications: With Some Examples of the Political Campaigns (1997); Media and Society, Women in the Media and Women Journalists (2002); International Media (2004); A Guide to Media and Children (2008); Text Analysis (2009); Women and their Body in the Spiral of Femininity, Sexuality and Violence (2010), Hate Speech and Hate Crimes (2012) Minorities, The Other and Media (2014), Internet and Street (2015) News Readings (2016), Journalism ‘a Peacekeeping Agent’ at the Time of Conflict (2018), LGBTI+ Individuals and Media (2019) Covid Diaries ( 2021) Pandemics, Neoliberalism and Media (2021), Media, Populism and Hate Speech (Brill-2025).
Her areas of studies are media criticism, hate speech. She conducts courses such as Alternative Media and Journalism Rights, Communication Ethics, Theories and Models of Communication and Media Criticism.
Location
Westminster Forum, 5th floor, 32–38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW
The event will take place in person. If you have any questions, please email the seminar convener, Dr Matthew Fluck at [email protected].
About the centre
The Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), established in 1989, is based in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster. At the Centre, academics working in politics and international relations undertake socially engaged, methodologically diverse and often interdisciplinary research that aims to address a range of critical political challenges in relation to democracy worldwide.
CSD has a longstanding international reputation for research excellence through a programme of publications, events and collaborations with academics, practitioners, policymakers, and activists. Research in Politics and International Studies at CSD was ranked 4th highest in the UK for impact in the Research Excellence Framework 2021.
The Centre has established numerous collaborations with scholars and universities around the world and has hosted encounters with public intellectuals including Luc Boltanski, Judith Butler, Stuart Hall, Bruno Latour, Richard Rorty, Quentin Skinner, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Charles Taylor, James Tully, and Michael Walzer. The CR Parekh lecture, instituted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh, has included lectures by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arundhati Roy, and Ashis Nandy.
CSD recognises that responding to contemporary social and political challenges requires engagement beyond the academy, so actively welcomes dialogue and collaboration with researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and activists around the world. The Centre is directed by Professor Nitasha Kaul.
