Portfolio

Research

I first started solving puzzles in primary school, and perhaps out of habit, I still tend to see many things as puzzles. In my research, I look for the puzzles hidden within discourse and take them apart piece by piece. My research explores how culture, individuals, and institutions shape the narratives we come to accept as familiar, natural, or unquestionable, and how these established discourses continue to shape the ways we understand people, power, and society today. Working primarily with discourse analysis and cultural research, I am interested in what lies beneath seemingly ordinary representations: whose perspectives become dominant, whose voices are overlooked, and how social meanings are produced, reproduced, and transformed over time.

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Forgotten Femicide: Prejudice and Blame in Media Representations of Murdered Sex Workers in the U.S.

MA Thesis · University of Bamberg · 2025

The Puzzle

How does the media construct the identities of murdered sex workers, and how do these representations influence the way their deaths are understood? I was particularly interested in the tension between the violence committed against these women and the narratives constructed around who they were — and, implicitly, how deserving they were of sympathy, attention, and justice.

The Material

I examined media representations of murdered sex workers in the United States, focusing on the language, narratives, and recurring patterns through which victims and their deaths were portrayed. Rather than treating these representations as neutral descriptions, I approached them as cultural texts that participate in constructing meaning around gender, sexuality, violence, and victimhood.

Conference Presentation
This research was presented as a poster at AAAL 2025 · American Association for Applied Linguistics

The Approach

Using discourse analysis, I examined how language constructs particular versions of reality: which characteristics are foregrounded, which are left unspoken, and how individual choices, identities, and social positions are connected to narratives of responsibility and blame. I paid particular attention to the ways seemingly ordinary descriptions can reproduce broader cultural assumptions.

What I Found

The analysis revealed recurring patterns of victim-blaming and prejudice in media representations of murdered sex workers. Their identities and occupations could become central to the narrative of their deaths, shifting attention away from the violence committed against them and towards questions of personal responsibility, morality, and lifestyle. 

Invisible Bodies: A Comparison of the Media Representations of Murdered Cisgender Women and Transwomen

Talking Bodies Conference 2023, University of Chester

I examined the media representation of murdered cisgender women and transwomen through a comparative discourse analysis of news coverage in Turkey and England between 2011 and 2016. Focusing on patterns of visibility, silence, sympathy, and victim-blaming, I compared the coverage of two murders involving strikingly similar forms of violence: one against a cisgender woman, which received extensive and sympathetic coverage, and one against a transwoman, whose murder received significantly less attention and was represented differently. The research explored how media discourse constructs not only individual victims, but also broader ideas about whose lives and deaths are considered worthy of public recognition, ultimately revealing forms of discursive invisibility surrounding violence against transwomen.

Content & Social Media

Turning research and cultural knowledge into clear, engaging digital content.

Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Nürnberg-Intern

research
to
create
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communicate

Research

 

Cultural and political topics

Audience research

Information gathering

Create

 

Social media content

Copywriting

Visual content

Communicate

 

Complex ideas to accessible content

Events to digital engagement

Information to stories

During my internship at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Nürnberg, I worked on making the institute’s cultural and academic work more accessible through digital media. My responsibilities included creating social media content, developing written and visual materials, and supporting the digital communication of the institute’s events and activities. The experience strengthened my ability to translate research and cultural content into clear, engaging digital communication tailored to different audiences.

The Approach

Using discourse analysis, I examined how language constructs particular versions of reality: which characteristics are foregrounded, which are left unspoken, and how individual choices, identities, and social positions are connected to narratives of responsibility and blame. I paid particular attention to the ways seemingly ordinary descriptions can reproduce broader cultural assumptions.