The fever that hit Arab satellite television: audience perceptions of Turkish TV series

Turkish television drama series were locally produced products until the early 2000s. Since then, about 70 different titles have been broadcast to audiences in 40 countries, especially in the Middle East, where they comprise approximately 60% of the share in foreign programme broadcasts. This article explores the factors that led to such an attraction by considering the debates around the impact of transnational media products on Arab cultural identity. The authors conducted focus groups and interviews with audiences in Palestine and Egypt and with the producers/distributors of these TV series in Turkey. The data presented here comprise the results of one of the first field-based studies on the reception of Turkish media products in the region. Foremost, the Arab audience response to these Turkish TV series highlights the differences in conceptualisations of modernity' in the Arab World. Moreover, the data suggest that audiences do not necessarily consider transnational media products as culprits that corrupt cultural identity.