Positioning the social and cultural status of women in Turkish society in the media: a study through the tv series Kizil Goncalar

This study examines how the social and cultural position of women in Turkish society is represented in the media, using the television series "Kızıl Goncalar" (Red Buds) as an example. The research addresses the impact of television series on the reproduction of gender roles, female identity, and cultural values. The main objective of the study is to reveal the discursive and ideological codes through which the representations of women in the series are presented, and to analyze how these representations are interpreted by the audience. This study adopted a qualitative research method; two seasons of the Red Blossoms series were examined using Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis method. During the analysis, the positions of female characters within societal pressure, family structure, education, working life, and religious-cultural norms were evaluated. In the reception analysis section of the research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 participants selected from different socio-cultural backgrounds, based on the first season of the series. The data obtained were evaluated using thematic analysis within the framework of Stuart Hall's encoding-decoding model, and it was determined that participants developed dominant, negotiating, and counter-readings of the representations of women in the series. The research concludes that television series are powerful cultural tools that reproduce perceptions of women's social status. It was observed that representations of women in these series are constructed through individual stories, societal ideologies, cultural conflicts, and power relations. This study aims to contribute to the literature by revealing the relationship between the representation of women in the media and social structures and cultural values.