Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muhammed Bilgehan Aytaç is a faculty member at the Faculty of Communication, Aksaray University. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and a Master's degree in Management Information Systems (MIS), both from Gazi University. During his doctoral studies, he served as a visiting researcher at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia (UBC). His academic research primarily focuses on consumer behavior, consumer psychology, personality theories, religiosity, and sports marketing.

Betül Aydoğan is an academic at Galatasaray University, Faculty of Communication, and holds a PhD in Media and Communication. She works at the intersection of communication studies, cultural studies, and human geography. Her latest research focuses on lifestyle migration, rural tourism, place-making practices, and the reconfiguration of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capitals in migration destination areas. She has also published articles and edited a book on digital culture, spatial interactions, and locative media.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yelda Yanat Bağcı earned her BA, MA, and PhD degrees in Cinema from the Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema at Istanbul University. Her academic research focuses on film theory, screenwriting, visual narrative, semiotics, documentary cinema, digital media, and gender studies. Following her tenure at Hasan Kalyoncu University as Deputy Head of Department and Chair of the Main Science Field, she currently serves as a faculty member in the Department of Photography and Video at Yıldız Technical University's Faculty of Art and Design. Dr. Bağcı teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on screenwriting, visual storytelling, documentary cinema, and media, and is also an internationally award-winning documentary filmmaker.

Dr Quaye obtained master’s degrees in marketing and Brand Management from the Norwegian School of Economics and in Psychology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He completed his bachelor’s degree with Honors in Psychology with Philosophy from the University of Ghana, Legon.

His academic journey has taken him from serving as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, Wits Business School, until becoming a faculty member at the same institution. Driven by his passion for teaching, he has instructed a range of courses, from Research Theory and Design to Introduction to Digital Marketing, Strategic Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Applied Services Marketing and Marketing Communication for Philanthropy at various levels of postgraduate teaching at WBS.

Dr Quaye is competent in research methods and analytical procedures such as setting up and implementing quasi-experimental designs for consumer psychology research, conducting data analysis using Structural Equation Modeling in Mplus, and proficient in use of SPSS for data exploration and analysis. He is also competent in the use of PROCESS Macro for SPSS.

Kerem Ozan Bayraktar is an Istanbul-based artist and academic represented by Sanatorium who uses site-specific installations, digital imagery, and field research to examine the fragility, absurdity, and instability of both actual and imaginary environments shaped by congestion, accumulation, and overlooked infrastructures. Holding an MFA and DFA in Painting from Marmara University and currently serving as a faculty member at Sabancı University, he has participated in prestigious programs such as BAK (Netherlands, 2022) and ZK/U (Germany, 2021), showcased his work at major venues like the Tokyo Biennale (2023) and Istanbul Modern (2024), and published several notable books, including Marmara (2023) and Maps of Worlds (2021).

Sevda Kaya Kitınur received her dual bachelor’s degrees in Sinology and Radio, Television and Cinema from Ankara University in 2011. Following her graduation, she was awarded the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship and pursued Mandarin studies in Taiwan. She completed her MA at Ege University with a thesis titled “The Phenomenon of Collective Memory in Post-Cultural Revolution Chinese Cinema: Scar Dramas,” which examined collective memory and historical representation in Chinese cinema.

In 2024, she was a visiting researcher in Taiwan with a research scholarship granted by the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library. She earned her PhD in 2025 with a dissertation entitled “Participatory Culture and Digital Storytelling: An Analysis on YouTube Marvel Fan Channels,” focusing on fan participation, digital labor, and platformized storytelling practices.

Since 2021, she has been working as a Research Assistant in the Department of New Media and Communication at İzmir University of Economics. Her research interests include digital storytelling, platform cultures, fan studies, popular culture, and Asian media and visual culture with a particular focus on YouTube, platformized digital storytelling practices, and transnational cultural circulation.

After graduating from Istanbul University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, English Translation and Interpreting (Major) and from the Faculty of Communication, Radio, TV and Cinema (Double Major) programs in 2012, Aydoğan was appointed as a research assistant to the Advertising Department of the Public Relations and Promotion Department of the Faculty of Communication at Akdeniz University within the scope of the Faculty Member Training Program (ÖYP) in 2013. In 2016, she defended her thesis titled "Reflection of Globalization on Advertisements and Advertising Strategies in the Context of Globalization" and graduated from the Public Relations and Promotion Department of the Institute of Social Sciences at Akdeniz University. With the opening of the Advertising Department of the Faculty of Communication at Akdeniz University in 2018, she was appointed to the Advertising Department as a research assistant. In 2021, she graduated from Akdeniz University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Public Relations and Publicity by successfully defending her doctoral thesis titled "A Model Proposal for Adult Digital Advertising Literacy" and received her doctorate on 23.12.2021. She was appointed as an assistant professor to the Department of Advertising on 01.02.2023 and still serves as an assistant professor. She received the title of associate professor in Advertising from the Interuniversity General Assembly on 22.03.2024. She continues her research in the fields of digital advertising, brand management, marketing communications, research methods and artificial intelligence.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Seyda Kocak is a faculty member in the Department of Journalism at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, Faculty of Communication. Her work focuses on media studies, new media, sociology, women’s studies, and digital culture. Her research examines digital capitalism, data, gender, the public sphere, and the transformation of communication practices.

Dr. Jyothi Justin holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and Digital Humanities from IIT Indore. Her research interests include the use of cartographic tools in literary research, with a particular focus on spatial archiving and Dalit cultural studies. Her doctoral project used GIS for understanding female fictional and non-fictional narratives of selected Dalit massacres in India. She also created a spatial archive of the survivor narratives entitled Cartographies of Courage: Fictional Threads, Real Lives (mappingmassacres.iiti.ac.in). Dr. Jyothi has published on topics including Digital Cartography and Feminist Geocriticism, Dalit Massacres, and Ecocriticism. Her primary research interests are Cultural Studies, Dalit Studies, Digital/Spatial Humanities, and Gender Studies. She was an executive member of DHARTI and is the recipient of the CLS INFRA TNA Fellowship. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Excellence - Cultural Studies (CoE-CS), Allaince University, India.

After completing a PhD in Anthropology at Northwestern University, she joined the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç Üniversitesi as an Assistant Professor. Her research examines how media technologies produce, circulate, and shape social inequalities, combining ethnographic and historical anthropological methods.

Supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, her work explores the history and politics of new media technologies through the lenses of class and gender inequalities. With support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation Hunt Fellowship, her book project investigates media representations of religion-based inequalities in Türkiye, focusing on secularism and journalism. She is currently developing a new project on repair cultures and repair practices, which has recently reached the interview stage of the European Research Council Starting Grant competition.

Dr. Arindam Das holds a Ph.D. in English from Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. He is a Critical Business Culture and Communication specialist with 22 years of experience, and his research interests are as diverse as Critical Communication Studies, Critical Marketing Studies, Consumer Culture Theory & Global South, Consumer Well-being, Macromarketing, Critical Advertising Studies, Critical Organizational Studies, Post/decolonial Discourses, Cultural Studies, Race Studies, and Literary Criticism & Theory.

 

Suncem Koçer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University. She received her Bachelor's degree from Boğaziçi University in 2003 and her Master's degree from the University of Arkansas in 2005. She completed her PhD in Communication & Culture and Anthropology at Indiana University in 2012. Dr. Koçer’s primary research and expertise areas include media and politics, identity and culture, political communication, digital anthropology, ethnography, news media and journalism, media policies and regulation, and mixed-method research methodologies. Alongside her academic work, she is the founder of InfodemiLab, which investigates the information ecosystem and media practices in Turkey.

Holds a PhD in Administration with a focus on Behavioral Studies from EBAPE - Fundação Getulio Vargas - RJ (2017). She earned her Master’s degree in Administration with a focus on Marketing from EAESP - Fundação Getulio Vargas - SP (2011), as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration (2003) and a specialization in Marketing (2007) from the same institution. She has academic and professional experience in the field of Administration, with an emphasis on Marketing. Her research interests include consumer behavior, decision-making, and social marketing.

Uğur Gündüz graduated from Marmara University (the Department of Business Administration, the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences) in 1999. He gained his PhD in Journalism at Istanbul University, for his dissertation “Westernization Concept in the Press: A Comparison of Young Turk Journalism and Present Journalism” in 2009. His research interests are the Sociology of Communication, New Media, History of Communication and Westernization, the Press and Modernization in Turkey. He is currently a Professor of the Department of Journalism at Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Born in Istanbul in 1978, Prof. Dr. Deniz Yengin received her undergraduate degree from the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Istanbul Bilgi University. She completed her Master's degree in Communication Design at the Institute of Social Sciences, Istanbul Kültür University. She received her doctorate from the Department of Information Technology, Institute of Social Sciences, Marmara University, with her doctoral thesis titled "The Concept of Violence in Digital Games: New Violence". Currently a faculty member in the Department of New Media and Communication at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Yengin conducts scientific research and studies on research methods, agenda theory, information society, surveillance society, technological determinism, touch society, digitalization, interactivity, new media, digital games, artificial intelligence, and media in the communication process. Between 2020 and 2022, Prof. Dr. Deniz Yengin served as the Dean of the Faculty of Communication at Istanbul Aydın University, where she conducted quantitative and qualitative research based on observation and experimentation at the VRlab (Virtual Reality Laboratory) established within the university. Since February 2022, she has served as the Head of the Department of New Media and Communication at the Faculty of Communication, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. She also teaches applied and theoretical courses in the New Media and Communication Master's Program at the Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Graduate Education Institute. Yengin has authored several books, including “New Media, Theories and Approaches”, “New Media and the Touchscreen Society”, “Digital Games and Violence”, “Social Media Research”, “Research Methods and Applications in Communication Studies”, “New Violence in the Virtual World”, “Virtual Reality-VR”, “New Media Theories 101”, and “Symptoms Triggered by Virtual Reality”. Yengin, who conducts research on the concept of New Media, also examines the positive and negative social practices awaiting us in the future and carries out scientific studies on preventative measures. She is an evaluator and Board Member of İLEDAK (Communication Education Evaluation Accreditation Board), authorized by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK). Yengin, who teaches both applied and theoretical courses, is the editor of the Turkish Online Journal of Design Art and Communication and the founding partner of AI.Labs Information Software and Management Consulting Services.

I have a master's degree in sociology and media studies and a doctorate in political science. In my professional work, I strive to integrate all these fields. I have worked as a journalist and currently work in public administration. However, my greatest passion is media and information theory, which I am constantly developing. 

Biography – Dr. Katarzyna Miłek

Dr. Katarzyna Miłek holds a PhD in Social Sciences in the field of Education. She is an academic teacher, researcher, and education practitioner. She currently serves as Dean at the University of Applied Sciences in Wrocław, where she is actively involved in the development of academic research, teaching, and national and international cooperation. She also heads the Academic Laboratory for Pedagogical Research.

Her research interests focus on preschool and early childhood education, children’s creativity, art therapy, education of children with special educational needs, as well as contemporary transformations in education associated with the development of digital technologies. She is the author and co-author of numerous academic publications, research articles, and chapters in scholarly monographs.

Her recent academic work increasingly addresses modern technologies, artificial intelligence, and the challenges facing children and education in the digital society. She is, among others, a co-author of the chapter “Future Trends: Preparing Children for AI-Driven Societies of 2040 and Beyond,” which explores the future of education in societies increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

Dr. Miłek is actively engaged in international academic cooperation, participating in joint research initiatives and projects with scholars from universities abroad. Through the Academic Laboratory for Pedagogical Research, she develops international research collaboration, including cooperation with academics from Türkiye. She is also involved in expanding the international partnerships of the University of Applied Sciences in Wrocław and has undertaken teaching activities within the Erasmus+ Programme, including academic visits to Türkiye and Egypt.

She combines academic research with pedagogical practice and educational management. In her professional and scholarly work, she places particular emphasis on developing innovative and responsible educational solutions that support the development of children and young people and prepare education systems to respond effectively to the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

ORCID: 0000-0003-4603-4604