A Critical Approach to Cultural Adaptations: A Case Study on the Localization of Norms of Authority and Gender Politics in TV Series Adaptations in Turkey

Abstract

This dissertation examines cultural adaptations of transnational television series as a means to study how media globalization plays out at the local/national level. Through a critical perspective, the study investigates if and how cultural adaptations contribute to the maintenance of the politico-cultural status quo and discusses their potential for disrupting existing ideological formations by inspiring the audience to engage in critical self-reflections. Focusing on contemporary localized versions of global television in Turkey, the study explores how cultural adaptations perpetuate existing relations of power, especially amidst intense socio-economic transformation. The study particularly scrutinizes the ways in which cultural adaptations of television dramas, one of the most popular TV genres in Turkey, affirm or challenge cultural norms of authority and gender. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis as its analytical framework, the dissertation offers a comprehensive study comprising quantitative and qualitative data from cultural adaptations of six television series and compares them with their traveling other. By tracing the textual and narratological divergences between the remakes and their source texts, with a particular focus on dialog, camerawork, narrative structure, musical score, and mise-en-scene, it investigates how issues of power and gender are reconfigured and articulated idiosyncratically at the local level. Analysis of global television texts and the localization process enables the researcher not only to study the local particularities of cultural globalization in the making but also to reveal the global remaking of the local. The findings offer new insights into how culture, politics and media intersect in the construction of varying narratives of national identity, gender and power relations.