The culture of television serials on Turkish televisions in the millennium and the problem of social representation

Domestic television drama is one of the most popular television genres on Turkish televisions. With its origins going back to 1970s, Turkish television dramas were serials adapted from Turkish novels. It was not until the second half of the 1980s when the dramatic, aesthetic and sectoral perspectives of the television medium was comprehended by some of TRT directors who had considerably important contributions to the television drama production. In the early years of commercial broadcasting in Turkey, television drama production was minuscule in amount because its production requires technical experience and high cost.The most significant increase of Turkish television drama occurred after millennium both in number and in quality. Moreover there aroused new characteristics in relation to the ratings system manipulating the whole television broadcast. Other framing influences are global media trends, TRT serial heritage, Turkish Cinema and Turkish folklore. More than 1000 domestic television drama were aired during 2000-2010, most of which were serials. Serial format dominating the Turkish television drama production carries the characteristics of prime?time soaps. These television serials can be categorized into groups according to their similar topics. Among these categories, two of them embodying different time periods, are chosen to analyze the social representation in Turkish television dramas. Main characters of the television serials were analyzed in order to specify their properties with relation to some social changes occurred in Turkey after 2000. As a result of the research, the social representation seen in domestic television dramas in Turkey, determined by mostly Turkish audience?s settled viewing habits grounding on two sources ? TRT and Turkish Cinema. Nevertheless, frequently used story ?the love of the rich with the poor? needs to be packaged in such a way that it would seem new again. The producers formulate the success of the television drama by using a hybrid representation composed of the old stories with an addition of current issue sauce.