Banafsheh Ranji

Banafsheh Ranji serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), with prior roles as Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (2022), Researcher/Lecturer at the University of Oslo (2019-2022), and PhD completion at the University of Oslo (2019).

Her research expertise spans media and communication studies, migration, racism, and critical theory, utilizing ethnographic methods to examine journalistic practices in restrictive contexts (particularly Iran), immigrant representation in Norwegian educational materials, and media racism. This is exemplified in her Routledge monograph Journalistic Practices in Restrictive Contexts (2022).

Analysis of her 12 publications (2019-2025) reveals consistent focus on power structures in media, with dominant themes including authoritarian communication strategies, immigrant belonging, and critical race analysis in Nordic contexts. Her work bridges sociological theory with empirical studies of Iranian and Norwegian media landscapes.

Her sole major award is featured:

• King's Gold Medal (Hans Majestet Kongens Gullmedalje) for outstanding research in Humanities, University of Oslo, 2020.

Ranji actively supervises research projects examining: (1) integration discourses in Norwegian language course materials and immigrant subject construction; (2) racism in Norwegian media and impacts on immigrant belonging; and (3) authoritarian communication strategies in Iran. Her outreach includes public lectures on racism in Norwegian media during the pandemic and token diversity critiques.