University of Exeter Press
Turkish Drama Serials
The Importance and Influence of a Globally Popular Television Phenomenon
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- 244 Pages
The extraordinary global success of Turkish drama serials is a significant development in contemporary popular culture. This book presents comparative audience data from three different regions to explore its ramifications across the Global South. We learn how this phenomenon has transformed Turkey—a Muslim-majority country—into the world’s second-largest producer of scripted television serials, enticing audiences from all over the world.
The book takes an audience-centred approach, investigating the reasons for the allure of Turkish dramas to Arab, Latin American, and Israeli audiences. In tandem, it explores Turkey's changing foreign policy, economic, and trade relationships since the turn of the millennium, which have coincided with the enormous success of the country's television output. It also analyses the role and importance of Turkish dramas as a soft-power tool by scrutinizing how they have influenced viewers' perceptions of Turkey, its people, and its culture.
This volume will appeal to those working in various disciplines—from media and communication, international relations, public diplomacy, sociology, and Middle Eastern studies. The material will also be of great relevance to upper-level undergraduates, postgraduate students, academics, scholars and researchers.
Dr. Berg’s book is masterful in describing the ability of Turkish drama serials to foster a familiarity, interest, admiration, and affinity with Turkish culture and history. Anyone with an interest in Turkey’s growing influence in global affairs will find this to be a must-read that provides valuable context regarding how effectively soft diplomatic power can be exercised.
Dr Stuart N. Brotman, Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor of Journalism and Electronic Media Enterprise and Leadership, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
A great introduction to understand the transnationalization of Turkish drama. Miriam Berg successfully explains how Turkish drama has become an international sensation with case studies from different parts of the world.
Dr Pinar Aslan, Üsküdar University, Istanbul
Dr Miriam Berg successfully traces the popularity of the Turkish serial in different geo-cultural and geo-linguistic regions such as Qatar, Chile, and Israel in order to find out about their appeal to diverse audiences. It offers an excellent appraisal of the Turkish TV series as a growing transnational television product by engaging in timely and relevant conceptual discussion of concepts such as soft power and cultural proximity. It is a reference book for anyone who is interested in the global television industry and its multifaceted development in different regional contexts.
Dr Eylem Yanardagoglu, Kadir Has University, Istanbul
Berg’s attention to media audience reception is matched by political analysis which is as equally thrilling in the foreground as the background of her chapters... [Turkish Drama Serials is a] highly readable and engaging work on media and politics, and I await Berg’s future work with great anticipation.
Kai Roland Green
Participations
[The book] offers an important contribution to the discussion of a very interesting topic... It provides an overview of the Turkish drama serials at a time when they not only provide domestic content (alongside the production of remakes) but are also becoming globally popular.
Özlem Arda
Critical Studies in Television
Introduction
1. The Turkish Television Industry: From National to Transnational
2. Turkish Drama Serials in the Arab World
3. Fluctuating Turkish–Arab Relations and the Soft Power of Drama Serials
4. The Importance of Socio-Cultural Factors in the Appeal of Turkish Serials among Arab Viewers
5. Why Turkish Dramas Resonate with Arab Women: An Analysis of the Responses of Women Viewers in Qatar
6. Turkish Drama Serials in Chile
7. Turkish Drama Serials in Israel
Summary and Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
- 244 Pages
