Cosmopolitan imaginary: The reception of Turkish TV series among young audiences in urban, rural, and diasporic settings (Istanbul, Emirdağ, and Brussels)

Abstract

This study explores the reception of selected melodramas and their cosmopolitan imaginary, based on a large-scale qualitative study consisting of 79 in-depth interviews with young Turkish audiences across three locations: the metropolis Istanbul, the rural town of Emirdağ, and Brussels which has a large Turkish diasporic community. In the past two decades, melodramas representing the upper-class, elite, westernized lifestyles taking place in luxury residences in Istanbul's urban landscape occupy a central space in the Turkish series as an example of cosmopolitan imaginary in their representation and mode of production. The study reveals that the cosmopolitan imaginary of these TV series leads participants to negotiate Turkish modernity, westernized secular, upper-class lifestyles, Turkish values, religion, and identity issues in these settings and destabilizes a uniform and fixed understanding of their identity and imagined community.