Photographed at the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, United States 

Research

Dr. Jülide Etem’s research investigates the institutional life of media—how film, and related forms circulate within systems of governance, diplomacy, education, and public health. Her work critically examines the infrastructures, technologies, and policy frameworks that shape media production and reception, with a focus on how these systems mediate power, negotiate asymmetry, and influence institutional responsiveness across local and transnational contexts.

Adopting an interdisciplinary methodology grounded in Media Studies, History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Political Science, Dr. Etem analyzes a wide array of media artifacts—including films, photographs, advertisements, bureaucratic correspondence, internal reports, journalistic narratives, and digital platforms. Her research uncovers the layered contexts in which media are conceived, sponsored, circulated, and interpreted, offering new ways of understanding their strategic function in both historical and contemporary settings.

At the heart of her scholarship is an attention to the institutional networks that commission and deploy media to shape public knowledge, advance policy agendas, and structure cultural narratives. Rather than treating media as isolated texts, she explores them as tools of visual governance—instrumental in constructing publics, managing populations, and legitimizing authority. Her work examines how institutions—from governments and NGOs to universities and international agencies—use media not only to inform or persuade, but to enact specific visions of social order and change.

By centering media created within development-oriented and policy-driven contexts, Dr. Etem brings to light overlooked visual practices that have shaped the world. Her research foregrounds the strategic role of media in projects of reform, intervention, and ideology, bridging past and present to illuminate the infrastructures of mediated power.