We are delighted to congratulate GMICP researcher Bilge Yesil on winning the Best Book Award 2026 from the International Communication Association (ICA) Global Communication and Social Change Division for her book Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order (University of Illinois Press, 2024).

This is the book’s second major award, following the Best Book Award from the International & Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) in 2025.

Talking Back to the West examines Turkey’s state-run and corporate media apparatus and how the ruling AKP party has built an international English-language communication system to project Turkey as a rising global power and counter Western criticism of its authoritarian practices. Yesil traces how AKP-sponsored outlets deploy decolonial and pan-Islamist rhetoric to position Turkey as a voice for oppressed Muslims worldwide — while simultaneously serving the government’s geopolitical ambitions and tightening its grip on power.

Bilge Yesil is Associate Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. The book is available from the University of Illinois Press.