ABOUT
About the person
Dr. Çiğdem Bozdağ is an associate professor at the Research Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen. She is the principal investigator of the NWO Vidi project DigiMig (2024-2028, University of Groningen), which consists of three sub-projects focusing on digital inclusion and migration, specifically in the contexts of families, policies, and education. Previously, Dr. Bozdağ held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship in the Faculty of Education at the University of Bremen, where she led the INCLUDED project (2019-2023). She also served as an assistant and associate professor and head of the New Media department at Kadir Has University and was part of the Mercator-IPC Fellowship Programme at the Istanbul Policy Center of Sabanci University in Istanbul. Dr. Bozdağ completed her Ph.D. in Communication and Media Studies in January 2013 at the University of Bremen.
Her research interests include media and migration, digital media use, digital literacy, digital inclusion, and media education in schools. Dr. Bozdağ has published several papers and two books on the topic of media and migration. She has co-edited a special issue on Inclusive Media Literacy Education for Diverse Societiesfor Media and Communication (2022) and another one on Representations of immigrants and refugees: News coverage, public opinion, and media literacy.
About the Keynote
Understanding digital inclusion in the context of transnational media practices
An increasing number of people around the world lead transnational and multilingual lives, maintaining daily connections with people, content, and contexts that transcend national borders. Such transnationalism and multilingualism are not limited to migrant communities; they also characterize the lives of individuals who consume cross-border media, engage in global social networks, work for multinational corporations, engage in cross-border work, or belong to local minority groups, among others. These forms of connectivity are largely facilitated by the affordances of digital media. Despite the growing prevalence of these realities, both research and policy often remain framed within a national paradigm—what Wimmer and Glick Schiller call “methodological nationalism.” This national framing is also evident in the field of digital inclusion, which encompasses policies, research, and interventions aimed at addressing digital inequalities and ensuring equal participation of all citizens in digital society. Most digital inclusion initiatives, however, are designed with a domestically bound citizen in mind, overlooking the implications of transnational digital engagement. This keynote explores how we might reconceptualize digital inclusion in light of the increasingly transnational nature of everyday mediated practices, and what this shift entails for future research, policy, and intervention.