Paper short abstract:

Based on empirical data on screen writing, musical narrative and film editing, this study explores how the dizi, Turkish television series, emerged in the past decade as an important genre of popular culture in the Eastern Mediterranean in a fierce market competing with other international genres.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores how the dizi genre emerged within Turkish television history, and how it reached the final form which is now exportable to other countries. When compared with the production and consumption patterns of the soap, telenovela or the newly emerging contents and formats of Asian television, dizi as a genre has been praised and despised in the global market from different angles. This reseach consists of in-depth interviews conducted since 2011 with producers, screenwriters, directors, art directors, directors of photography, editors, musicians, actors, managers and location scouts. While the narratives of these interviews help greatly to observe the collective creative processes leading to the production of the dizi, the printed and social media display how its reception transcend national boundaries today.

This study therefore also tries to situate the Turkish dizi sector within the general framework of the global television events such as MIPTV, MIPCOM, AFM or the more local ones like the Discop or ITVF. Although the international reception has been an important dimension taken more into account in recent years, what makes up the genre of dizi continue to be primarily 'local' where the production and reception processes continually negotiate between the creative input and the mercantile profit.