Representation of family in national prime-time television serials through gender roles

Television is one of the most powerful mass media, reproducing cultural values, beliefs and common attitudes prevailing in a society. Gender roles are one of these common beliefs and attitudes that exist dominantly in a society, attributed to women and men by people. Television reproduces gender roles through its narrative structures and distributes them again to that society. Television serials, being one of the most used narrative forms of television, has much to do with this reproduction process.The family is one of the most common and important themes by which gender roles are reproduced in television serials. After all the changes it underwent through the history, it became an environment in which different roles are produced and be experienced for women and men, as well as these roles are transmitted to the future generations. Representation of gender roles within the family in television serials occur as women and men being represented in different places, with different roles.Turkish society is still considered as a traditional society in which patriarchy prevails within the family, and the roles of women and men are separated obviously. This situation reflects in the families, represented in television serials. This research focuses on places and roles of women and men within Turkish family structure and tries to reveal how the family in television serials is represented from the point of gender roles, approaching the issue with a depictive and judgemental method.