Hanan Badr is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg, Austria, where she heads the division of Public Spheres and Inequalities. Adopting a critical decolonial perspective, her work focuses on inequalities and communication, global and exiled journalism, comparative media systems, and (digital) activism and transformation.
Her recent books include Critical Communication Research with Global Inclusivity (2026), Cosmopolitan Communication Studies (2025), Arab Berlin: Dynamics of Transformation (2023), and Media Governance: A Cosmopolitan Critique (2022). She previously served as Associate Editor of Journal of Communication and Journalism Practice. Hanan is the first Arab professor of communication studies in the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
She studied in Cairo and Erfurt and has held academic positions at Freie Universität Berlin, Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait, and the Orient-Institut Beirut of the Max Weber Foundation.