Dr. Jülide Etem (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, where she also directs the Film Studies Concentration and chairs the Film Studies Curriculum Committee. A media studies scholar, Dr. Etem’s research examines how film operates within institutional infrastructures, how it is strategically sponsored, produced, exhibited, and circulated to shape public opinion, manage populations, and mediate power.

Her forthcoming book, Film Diplomacy: A Media History of Turkey–US Relations (Columbia University Press, 2026), examines educational films as key tools of geopolitical strategy. Focusing on the period from 1930 to 1986, the book analyzes how films were used to address infrastructural and public challenges, promote development paradigms, and secure international alliances. See the recent review on USC Center on Public Diplomacy by Nancy Snow.

Dr. Etem is currently leading three research projects that expand her interdisciplinary inquiry into media, policy, and visual epistemology:

Gun Violence and Documentary Film explores how nonfiction media operates as a slow infrastructure of care, making visible the grief, structural neglect, and community resistance that define the ongoing crisis of gun violence in the United States. Supported by grants from the Gun Violence Solutions Project, the Karsh Institute for Democracy, the Office of Citizen Scholar Development, and the Vice Provost for the Arts, this project bridges public health, visual culture, and participatory filmmaking.

Physics Film Experiments during the Cold War examines how educational physics films circulated through Cold War scientific and diplomatic networks. Drawing on archival research in the United States and Turkey, the project explores how audiovisual media standardized scientific pedagogy, produced audience data, and promoted particular visions of modernization and technological progress.

Family Planning Narratives investigates how film was used to shape anxieties around Cold War population growth and food scarcity. Using archival materials, the project analyzes how films became useful tools to advance policy objectives and influence public behavior.

Across these projects, Dr. Etem’s scholarship examines film as a critical infrastructure of mediation. Her work shows how film along with other media operate within and across institutions. By tracing the circulation of film through scientific, political, and cultural domains, she studies film’s institutional life and its capacity to structure how we see, feel, and act in the world.

To get connected, please reach Dr. Etem at aje4v@virginia.edu.