The formation of cinema culture in Turkey (1950-1960)

New approaches to historiography have significantly influenced the study of cinema history, as well as other social science disciplines, and the field has begun to break away from the influence of film-centered historical approaches. There has been a growing awareness that the phenomenon of cinema is not just about films. The producers of the films, the industry, the financial world, and the politics in which these producers are involved, the audiences that consume the films, and the sociocultural climate that shapes these audiences constitute different aspects of film history as factors and processes that shape these films and deserve to be studied. In this study, the history of Turkish cinema between 1950 and 1960, inspired by the new approaches in cinema history research, is examined from the perspective of the formation of cinema culture, a topic that has not been addressed before. In the books on Turkish cinema history, this period has mostly been treated in the light of film-centered approaches, which means that some names, institutions, approacheapproaches, and concepts related to this period have either been eclipsed and not adequately dealt with or left in the dusty pages of our cinema history without being discussed at all. The thesis examines the formation process of cinema culture in Turkey between 1950 and 1960 in line with the concept of cinema, which underwent a change from film culture to cinema culture in parallel with the change in the concept of culture throughout the ages. In doing so, cinephiles, who are the carriers of film culture, and th e institutions and activities in which they are the main actors are examined with a critical eye, unlike previous studies on the period. On the other hand, agents of popular cinema, such as cinema magazines and fan clubs, which were not previously considered worthy of study because they were not included in film culture, are also the subject of the research.