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The University of Southampton
Winchester School of ArtPostgraduate study

Ms Ozlem Demirkol 

Postgraduate Research Student

Ms Ozlem Demirkol's photo

Ozlem Demirkol is a doctoral researcher at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. 

She completed her MA in Media and Communication at Bournemouth University in 2016 where she was awarded a postgraduate academic excellence scholarship. Her MA dissertation focused on redefining success in digital activism campaigns, through which she has developed an interest in the ways of challenging power structures through the use of digital platforms. She is the representative for the PGRs at WSA and a member of the Faculty of Humanities Ethics Committee. She is also the Outreach Officer for the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association Postgraduate Network (MeCCSA-PGN). She has been a visiting lecturer in the MA Global Media Management at University of Southampton since 2017. Previously, she was a Senior Research Assistant of the Civic Media Hub at Bournemouth University, where she has worked with NGOs and journalists on projects around human rights, policing, riot control and housing justice.

Research interests

My PhD project explores the surreptitious expressions of dissent and dissident mobilisation on Turkish Twitter around 2018 Turkish Presidential Elections. In my thesis, I respond to a need for understanding the everyday and informal expressive political participation that is presented in less explicitly political forms on Turkish Twitter where expressions of dissent can be penalised or censored. In order to do this, I investigate the political participation of 97 popular accounts on Turkish Twitter that are famous for providing a humorous narration of their everyday life in Turkey, which includes commentaries on daily news, social reality and sometimes politics. These accounts accumulate a significant amount of cultural and social capital online and the informal political talk they exhibit becomes a gateway to understanding the vernacular conventions of dissident political talk on Twitter and mobilisations that emerge through these latent expressions.

My research interests include digital cultures, alternative journalism, online political communication and critical data studies. 

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Feigenbaum, A., Thorsen, E., Weissmann, D. and Demirkol, O., 2016. Visualising data stories together: Reflections on data journalism education from the Bournemouth University Datalabs Project. Journalism Education, 5(2), pp.59-74.

Critical Digital and Social Media Research Conference

University of Umea 6-8 March 2019 (Organised by CAMRI/University of Westminster and DIGSUM/University of Umea)
Presentation Title: Big Brother is Watching You: Communicating dissent under state surveillance in the age of micro-celebrity

MeCCSA Post-Representative Participations: Engaging with Civic Action in the Times of Digital Citizenship Conference

University of Brighton 16 November 2018 (Organised by MeCCSA PGN)
Presentation Title: Communicating Dissent in the age of Micro-Celebrity: An investigation into the 2018 Turkish Presidential Elections

Research Workshop on Indigenous Social Movements and Digital Technologies

University of Southampton (Organised by World Universities Network Research Development Fund)
Presentation Title: Wordplays, Screenshots and Analogies: Researching Dissent on Twitter When It Doesn’t Want to be Found

Faculty of Business Law and Art Doctoral Research Conference - Breaking Silos

University of Southampton 10-11 April 2017
Presentation Title: Politics of Micro-Celebrity on Turkish Twitter: Solidarity, Community and Shared Grievances

ECREA Digital Culture and Communication Section Conference – Digital Culture Meets Data: Critical Approaches
University of Brighton 6-7 November 2017
Presentation Title: Putting Critical Data Practice into Critical Data Studies
Authors: Anna Feigenbaum, Tom Sanderson, Ozlem Demirkol

Ms Ozlem Demirkol
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Park Avenue, Winchester, Hampshire. SO23 8DL United Kingdom
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