IN CLASS: This feature is part of an ongoing education column highlighting the various activities that engage school communities.<\/p>\n
Want this before everyone else? Subscribe to our Beyond the Classroom newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Staten Island college professor has received a prestigious award for an outstanding contribution to the study of international communication.<\/p>\n Bilge Yesil, a professor of media culture at the College of Staten Island, Willowbrook, was awarded the Distinguished Scholarship Award – Best Book of 2025, from the National Communication Association\u2019s International and Intercultural Communication Division.<\/p>\n The award recognizes Yesil\u2019s latest book, \u201cTalking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order.\u201d<\/p>\n Published in 2024, the book offers a critical examination of how Turkey\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party has sought to reposition the country on the world stage. In the 2010s, the party launched an English-language media system to elevate Turkey\u2019s image, counter Western criticism of its increasingly authoritarian practices, and promote its own geopolitical and economic interests.<\/p>\n Yesil\u2019s analysis traces how party-backed outlets frame Turkey as a champion of the oppressed and a counterweight to Western powers, while also revealing how media and communication initiatives often obscure facts, rely on identity politics, and weaponize anti-Western rhetoric to consolidate domestic power and bolster Turkey\u2019s regional ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really feels wonderful to receive this recognition from my peers,\u201d said Yesil. \u201cAs academics, we invest a great deal of time and energy in our work \u2014 often over many years \u2014 so it is deeply rewarding to see it recognized and appreciated by readers. It\u2019s also a reminder that all those long days (and nights) of research and writing were worthwhile, and that the ideas I hoped would spark conversation are finding an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n In recognizing Yesil\u2019s work, the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication\u2019s Association highlighted the book\u2019s innovative approach to understanding how communication strategies intersect with authoritarianism, religion, and identity politics. The division is one of the most active scholarly communities, dedicated to advancing research and teaching that explore communication across cultural and national boundaries.<\/p>\n Yesil said she hopes her book will inspire more conversations and scholastic research on communication strategies countries are using across the world, through the lenses outside traditional methods.<\/p>\n Send us your stories<\/p>\n Do you have a story idea for the In Class education column? Email education reporter Annalise Knudson at aknudson@siadvance.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IN CLASS: This feature is part of an ongoing education column highlighting the various activities that engage school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-42177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}