The research centre is hosting doctoral candidate Halil Saç

Halil Saç has joined the Social Communication Research Centre as a trainee this week. Halil is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Department of Journalism at Ankara University (Turkey). He has been conducting his doctoral thesis, which focuses on the dialectical relationships between news media and citizens that take place in the public sphere, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nurcan Törenli.

Halil will be at the centre from August 18 to November 18, 2025, under the Erasmus+ Traineeship Mobility Programme, with the guidance of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jernej A. Prodnik. During his stay, he will conduct research examining how the mainstream media’s strategy of reporting user-generated content, as a surplus value booster, impacts the prevalence of news related to politics, economy, and social issues, which can have a significant effect on the public sphere practices of citizens. Being less exposed to the news regarding political, economic, or social issues, citizens may display less effective political practices in the public sphere. Hence, he investigates whether an economic strategy utilised by news media makes citizens more apolitical by distracting their attention to non-political and non-social issues, thereby creating a framework that can weaken democracy.