The affirmed body of ideal citizen on television: The case of Sen Anlat Karadeniz

In the Turkish drama Sen Anlat Karadeniz, the discursively idealized citizen's gender identity, relationship with nationalism and belief practices are deciphered in the light of critical theory and feminist theory. The aim of this study which is based on the argument that mass media contributes to the official ideological discourse to establish hegemony in the field of culture is to explain how the different articulation of women to representations of citizenship from men excludes them from the ideal citizenship and how gender roles corroborated through television contribute to this. In this study, the power struggle of four women and four men characters in the Turkish drama Sen Anlat Karadeniz, their relations with nationalism symbols, their religious practices and their acceptance of femininity-masculinity roles were analyzed through critical discourse analysis. As a result of the analysis, it is revealed that the character of these discourses justifies the traditional gender roles, and when the femininity and masculinity roles corroborated by the discourses are examined, it is inferred that the ideal citizen is represented as a man. The fact that the public sphere is under men control, men dominate the areas such as employment, wealth, and religious leadership exclude women from equal citizenship. The analysis shows that the symbols of nationalism are identified with good/heroic characters and that the nationalist and conservative subject wins the ideal citizenship struggle among men (masculinities). In this Turkish drama, a positive relationship was established between values such as happiness, goodness, justice and conservatism; it was emphasized that in order to maintain social order, one must live in accordance with religious rules. Sen Anlat Karadeniz, which contributes to television's function of the ideology transmission, is a production in which the representation of ideal citizenship comes to life through the Turkish-Muslim-man subject. Keywords: Gender, Cultural Studies, Feminist Theory, Ideal Citizenship, Critical Discourse Analysis, Sen Anlat Karadeniz