Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, a professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award to conduct research in Turkey, which will help her further her studies of Turkish television drama.
Acosta-Alzuru (MA ’96, PhD ’99) will spend three and a half months in Turkey in the fall of 2024, immersed in the Turkish television content industry to investigate how it deals with tensions between its Turkish and global audiences, as well as the coexistence and future of traditional television and digital platforms.
The Distinguished Scholar Awards are the highest prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program. The prizes are given annually to scholars who have more than seven years of experience in respective discipline(s).
“This is huge for me,” Acosta-Alzuru stated. “The Turkish television season aligns exactly with the academic schedule in the United States, so I’m constantly running back and forth. I’ve always wanted to spend more time (in Turkey) so that I could accomplish this properly and begin writing on the book I intend to write.”
For more than 25 years, Acosta-Alzuru has examined the connections between media, culture, and society, with a particular emphasis on melodramatic television series from Latin America and Turkey, two of the world’s top exporters of such programs. Her work has been mentioned over 1,100 times, and she is the author of three books about telenovelas.
“I’m trying to unravel, all the time, what I see as a tight braid that has three wires — media, culture and society,” she added.
At Grady College, Acosta-Alzuru teaches public relations campaigns, cultural studies, and qualitative research methods. She has received numerous awards for her teaching and work, including the 2015 AEJMC-Scripps Howard Foundation Journalism and Mass Communication Teacher of the Year in the United States, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professorship, the University of Georgia’s highest teaching honor, and Grady College’s John Holliman Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I’ve wanted to be a Fulbright Scholar since I was a kid,” said Acosta-Alzuru. “I cannot believe I received it. “I’m just amazed.”
