Digital Transformations and the Impact of Turkish Telenovelas in Chile: Back to Melodrama

Abstract

In March 2014, Turkish melodramas took Chilean TV screens, and thereafter Latin American screens, by storm. Since then, Chilean television has incorporated Turkish productions in its usual programming. Ten titles were broadcast during the first two years. Between 2014 and 2018, 40 melodramas were aired, and for the last two years they have occupied more screen time than fictions from any other country, including Chile. What are the reasons for the success of Turkish dramas in the Chilean context? What are the main challenges that Chilean and Turkish productions have been facing since the eruption of Turkish telenovelas?The methodology used in this research was that of a semi-structured interview which was conducted with 146 people in order to discover the reason for the appeal of Turkish telenovelas as compared with local melodramas that were broadcast at the same time. These interviews were used to build selection criteria for nine in-depth interviews.The results indicate that Turkish telenovela succeeded in Chile for various reasons. First, these telenovela produced an identification by contrast or opposition in the viewers due to the fact that the recognition of a distinct other affirms and assures one's own experience. Second, the novelty of showing places, characters, and stories that have not been seen before that were produced by an industry unknown to Chileans, resulted in the return of more classic dramas and narratives as well as melodrama aesthetic to the television screen. Third, the type of audiences of these programs grew and diversified thereby influencing Chilean programming. The results presented above suggest that telenovela must begin to utilize local characteristics more frequently in order to generate conditions for the global recognition of a Chilean production model.

The role of online fan communities in the popularization of Turkish TV dramas in Brazil

“…More recently, works have been exploring the rise of Turkish dramas in Latin America, where the success of these productions is attributed to the classical melodramatic structure and the otherness: Turkish dramas offer familiar narratives portrayed in “exotic” locations (Antezana Barrios et al, 2021; Ashley, 2019; Cassano Iturri, 2021; Ferreira, 2021; Valverde, 2020). Moreover, the circulation of Turkish content through alternative means, such as online fan communities (Aslan, 2020) and the weekly package system in Cuba (Herrada Hildalgo et al, 2021), suggests that the informal distribution is advancing the expansion of Turkish dramas in the Latin American market.…”

Neo-Ottoman Turk-Scape: Analyzing the Role of Dizis as Türkiye’s Soft Power

“…The popularity of historical dizi have crossed all boundaries in Pakistan where then Prime Minister Imran Khan publicly endorsed them to what commentators have termed as an attempt to fill the "identity vacuum" (Behzan & Khattak, 2020). Several studies have acknowledged the success of Turkish dizis in the Arab world (Aydos, 2018;Berg, 2020), Latin America (Aslan, 2019;;Barrios et al, 2021;Hidalgo et al, 2021), Greece (Larochelle, 2021), Indonesia (Rakhmani & Zakiah, 2020), India (Pandit & Chattopadhyay, 2021), Pakistan (Bezhan & Khattak, 2020;Subramanian, 2020;Yilmaz & Shakil, 2021), Bangladesh (Sharifuzzaman, 2020), and among the Turkish diaspora in the West (Cetin, 2020).…”