Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency

Berrin Yanıkkaya is a Professor of Communication Studies. The areas of her academic interest lie in the crossroads of Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies and Media Studies. From the very beginning of her academic career, her focus has been on the construction of female agency through cultural and media production and meaning-making processes. The main themes underlining her academic publications can be summarized in four interrelated ‘tensions’; presence-absence/ unity-difference/ appearance-essence/ ‘west’- ‘east’ (as metaphors for the categories of power relations, rather than geographical places). The underlying themes in her work are women's 'voice' and experiences in media and culture as the participants of public sphere, the users and producers of counter public sphere, and the producers and active listeners/users/audience of cultural production. She has taken part in various international steering committees and served on editorial boards for different matters.

Angelique Margarita Nairn is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication Studies (SCS). As a graduate of the Bachelor of Communication Studies, she went on to complete a BCS Honours (first class) and her PhD all at Auckland University of Technology. Angelique is currently working on multiple research projects from explorations of morality in television programming, to how organisations encourage identification in their external communications, to the experiences of work among creative people. Aside from being in the classroom and supervising postgraduate students, Angelique also runs the SCS Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/AUTCommunicationStudies/).