Turkish historical television series: public broadcasting of neo-Ottoman illusions

Abstract

Turkish television series gained their presence in the global entertainment market being dubbed as Turkey’s soft power asset. However, in more recent years, together with increasing government control over Turkey’s media landscape and rising authoritarianism, historical television series depicting the Ottoman Empire have flourished primarily on Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) public broadcasting. This paper argues that historical television series on TRT reflect the political elite’s populist-nationalism and are in line with the AKP’s (Justice and Development Party) political discourse. Therefore, television series aired on TRT are operationalized by the AKP government to advance their political agenda and are thus employed as propaganda tools in disseminating a populist-nationalist discourse.