Screening Right-Wing Populism in “New Turkey”

Bulut, Ergin; İleri, Nurçin

doi:10.4324/9781315192468-25

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…By addressing national pride and anti-Western values shared by his constituency via a reference to the TV series, Erdoğan strives to consolidate masses with religious and nationalist indoctrination in line with his cultural policies. Nevertheless, analyzing the TV series Payitaht: Abdülhamid , Bulut and İleri (2020) illustrate how “the government mobilizes history for purposes of cultural hegemony and populist politics flavored with nationalist, Islamist, and anti-Western motifs” (p. 253). Therefore, it is not a coincidence that all these high-budget historical dramas have been produced by Turkey's public broadcaster to set the government's political agenda and disseminate its neo-Ottoman sentiments.…”

Section: Controlling the Turkish Tv Industry Via State Apparatuses: A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Content is power: Cultural engineering and political control over transnational television

Algan

Kaptan

2023

International Communication Gazette

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the 2000s, the television industry in Turkey has emerged as a transnational business and as one of the largest TV program exporters worldwide. However, Turkish television is still largely national in its production practices and content, and thus, highly vulnerable to the domestic political landscape and media regulations of the government. In the last two decades, rather than endorsing the independent growth of this emerging industry in the international markets, the Turkish government has erected barriers by tightening censorship and passing new regulations to control national television and its content production. The AKP government deployed various state apparatuses, including Turkey's public broadcasting channel (TRT), English language news channel (TRT World), and the regulatory agency Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) to foster the type of television content that can ideologically serve the AKP's conservative and neo-Ottomanist agendas. Drawing on the political economy of media and through critical analysis, this paper analyzes how these state mechanisms are used to instrumentalize TV exports and media institutions in service of President Erdoğan's cultural, economic, and foreign policy agendas within the country and abroad. By investigating the tension between the state's ideological project and the regional, transnational, and global mediasphere, our work sheds light on how the implementation of the government's new media and cultural policies, top-down directives and pressures from the state and government on both the TV industry and its audience, and South-to-South cultural flows have shaped the Turkish TV industry and its content in the last two decades.

show abstract

Section: Controlling the Turkish Tv Industry Via State Apparatuses: A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Content is power: Cultural engineering and political control over transnational television

Algan

Kaptan

2023

International Communication Gazette

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…If we do not have as much influence as they do, we're damned" (Gazete Duvar 2019). 5 Soylu's remarks were surprising because Çukur's masculine and family-oriented narrative is what the government has been after in its quest for cultural hegemony (Bulut and ˙Ileri 2019;Carney 2014;Kraidy and Al-Ghazzi 2013). So, the question becomes: Can seemingly similar masculine figures, protective regimes, and authoritarian narratives produce different political imaginations?…”

Section: çUkur's Plotmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ruling with a prolonged sense of state of emergency since 2016, Turkey's masculinist regime mobilizes fear and demands absolute obedience in return for protection. Progovernment media circulate fear among citizens as to how internal and external enemies aim to undermine the government, citizens' political rights, and the privileges of clientelist networks (Bulut and Can 2020). That is how the supporters of the ruling AKP imagine the president as "the chief" (reis) of the "New Turkey," referring to his protector role.…”

Section: çUkur's Plotmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, performing "the crudest version of hegemonic masculinity," the Turkish construction tycoon Ali Agaoglu manufactures "a realizable fantasy for his clients" in his commercials (Baydar and Karakız 2017, 193). Becoming a celebrity figure with his financial growth during the AKP era, he presents himself as a Godlike figure, displaying the desire for urban wealth and home ownership amidst a masculine playground defined by his alleged popularity among women and his conspicuous ownership of luxurious cars (Bulut, Can and ˙Ileri 2020). Although not the first and only one, Ankara's Çukurambar district, for instance, presents a peculiar case of gecekondu renewal where the AKP members moved from their parliamentary housing to the area, triggering urban transformation.…”

Section: çUkur's Plotmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Contested masculinities and political imaginations in “New Turkey” and Çukur as authoritarian spaces of protection

Bulut

Winter

2022

New Perspect. Turk.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Initially known as “the Turkish Godfather,” Turkish TV series Çukur (2017–2021) occasionally received criticism from government ministers and the government’s media regulatory board. This was surprising because Turkey’s and Çukur’s cultural universes converged around the masculinist protection of family and territory. So, why this political backlash despite the convergence? Wouldn’t that convergence of masculinity produce similar political imaginations? In this article we argue that in shaping the family and urban space, Çukur’s masculinities remain precarious vis-à-vis the hegemonic masculinity in “New Turkey.” Rather than being the society’s building blocks, Çukur’s families are suffocating spaces. At the same time, as opposed to cultivating neoliberal responsibility, Çukur’s familialism emerges as a space of solidarity in a precarious neighborhood to which state forces can hardly enter. Therefore, the neighborhood (mahalle) is not a space of consumption and surveillance but a haven against urban precarities. Despite their hierarchies and authoritarianism, Çukur’s men reject unquestioned political loyalty, conspicuous consumption, and entrepreneurship while endorsing the various impasses in family and urban life. Showing that absolute political obedience and economic dependence is not the only way out of neoliberal authoritarianism, Çukur confirms popular culture’s power in representing liminal spaces outside the state’s oppressive power and the markets’ commodifying logics.

show abstract

“…In the final article of this issue, Ece Algan and Yeşim Kaptan explore the deployment of national television as a state apparatus in Turkey and abroad. President Erdoğan's use of Turkish TV series as a propaganda tool for reinforcing his political, cultural, and foreign policy goals has prompted a wide discussion among scholars for its possible consequences (Bulut and Ileri, 2020;Carney, 2014Carney, , 2019Özçetin, 2019). Algan and Kaptan tackle the issue but with specific attention to the consequences on the content of Turkish dramas.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Cultural Politics and Production Practices of the Turkish TV Industry

Kaptan

Algan

2023

International Communication Gazette

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The transnationalization of the Turkish television industry, which began in the late 1990s, has been continuing with enormous success with Turkish TV series now being exported to more than 150 countries. In both introductions to the double special issue, we contextualize television in Turkey as a significant cultural field of production within its historical background and trace the transnational trajectory of Turkish dramas in Turkey and abroad. By focusing on the tensions and transformations spurred by the global presence of Turkish television, we critically examine what it means both for global audiences to consume and for the industry to produce Turkish dramas in the contemporary global televisual landscape. In the first volume (Issue 3) of this double special issue, the contributors reflect on the reception of Turkish TV series as well as their global and local consumption networks. In the second volume (Issue 4), the manuscripts explore the consequences of the industry practices and perceptions around what travels well along with nation-states' interventions and influences.

show abstract

Screening Right-Wing Populism in “New Turkey”

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Content is power: Cultural engineering and political control over transnational television

Content is power: Cultural engineering and political control over transnational television

Contested masculinities and political imaginations in “New Turkey” and Çukur as authoritarian spaces of protection

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Cultural Politics and Production Practices of the Turkish TV Industry

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About