Television in Turkey Local Production, Transnational Expansion and Political Aspirations

This edited collection takes a timely and comprehensive approach to understanding Turkey’s television, which has become a global growth industry in the last decade, by reconsidering its geopolitics within both national and transnational contexts. The Turkish television industry along with audiences and content are contextualised within the socio-cultural and historical developments of global neoliberalism, transnational flows, the rise of authoritarianism, nationalism, and Islamism. Moving away from Anglo-American perspectives, the book analyzes both local and global processes of television production and consumption while taking into consideration the dynamics distinctive to Turkey, such as ethnic and gender identity politics, media policies and regulations, and rising nationalistic sentiments.

1. Introduction: Turkey's National Television in Transnational Context.- 2. The Regulation of Television Content in Turkey: From State Monopoly to Commercial Broadcasting and Beyond.- 3. Televised Journalistic Documentaries of the 1990s: The form, content, and historical juncture.- 4. Revisiting the Unplugged Margins: Rural Television Audiences and Mediatization.- 5. Debating Women’s Issues on Turkish Television: Exploring the Role of Political  Power in Women’s Talk.- 6. Getting married on TV: Women’s Fragile Trust in the Marriage Show.- 7. Representing Female Detectives in Turkish Police Procedurals.- 8. Continuities and Changes in the Transnational Broadcasts of TRT.- 9. Mediatisation and hyper-commodification of sports in the post-1980 Turkey.- 10. From TRT to Netflix: Implications of Convergence for Television Dramas in Turkey.- 11. Mediatised culturalisation through television: Second-generation Alevi Kurds in London.- 12. Turkish Drama Serials and Arab Audiences: Why Turkish Serials are Successful in the Arab World.- 13. Consuming Halal Turkish Television in Indonesia: A Closer Look at the Social Responses towards Muhtesem Yüzyil.

Yesim Kaptan is Assistant Professor at the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University, USA.  She was a visiting scholar at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research focuses on transnational media, audience reception, global popular culture and consumerism. 

Ece Algan is a Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, San Bernardino, USA. Her research focuses on global communication, local radio and television, ethnic broadcasting, media activism, new media use, media ethnography and youth cultures.