Journalist Dunja Hayali Appointed as 19th Tübingen Media Lecturer at University of Tübingen
On Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 6:30 p.m., the journalist and presenter ( today’s journal, among others) Dunja Hayali will speak in the university’s ballroom (Neue Aula, Brüder-Scholl-Platz). Her lecture will be about the new power of populism, the constant outrage in discourse and the art of arguing in a communication climate that is characterized by the immediate condemnation of those who think differently and live differently. Her speech in Tübingen, to which the Institute for Media Studies and the SWR warmly invite you, is entitled: “When the dialogue ends, we can all get involved.”
Dunja Hayali, whose parents came to Germany from Iraq and who was born in Datteln, Westphalia, has been exposed to racist and sexist hostility for years. She has been receiving death threats for years and has been attacked on social media, but she does not avoid the debate and arguments. She speaks with AfD supporters, interviews neo-Nazis, corona deniers and critics of the pandemic measures, and engages in conversations with conspiracy ideologists and “lying press” screamers on the sidelines of demonstrations.
Sometimes she publishes a selection of wild insults on social networks, reads hate letters publicly or reports the worst attacks. Above all, however, it promotes dialogue across the broad spectrum of society – without shyness, in the difficult struggle for a harmonious balance of understanding and willingness to confront. “Tolerate the opinions of others,” says Dunja Hayali, “without devaluing them across the board and hastily. First understand, ask, listen, talk and then form an opinion. And yet, in the case of misanthropic ideologies, taking a clear stance and actually calling racism racism – that’s what’s important to me.”
In her speech in Tübingen, she addressed this balancing act, the struggle for social conversation and constructive debate. She reports on her own experiences as a “person with a migration background,” as she says. She examines the question of who actually belongs, who is allowed to join in the discussion, who is listened to – and who is not. And promotes dialogue and communicative bridge building in times of great irritation.
Media scientist Bernhard Pörksen will be responsible for the thematic introduction to the 19th Tübingen Media Lectureship, which is now one of the university’s largest events (up to 50,000 people watch individual lectures on YouTube, and more than 1,000 people are regularly in the ballroom). The subsequent discussion will be moderated by Tübingen SWR studio manager Marcel Wagner.