Gender roles produced in the Indian television series broadcast in Turkey and women's perceptions of these roles: The case of Gaziantep

In this thesis, the role of media in the process of forming gender identity was examined. The structure of media has changed dramatically since World War I and it has become a tool for transferring ideology. This transfer prioritizes the formation of identities in this way by following a patriarchal progress in the process of forming cultural identities in social life. The identity formation based on patriarchal roots is kept active at all essential points of the social area. In the process of the ideological transfer, it is applied to the process of consumption of soap opera where especially women try to escape from sexist patterns of everyday life. Thus, the media prepares women for the sexism in social life by reproducing partriarchal values in soap operas, despite it being an activity that women engage in to distance themselves from the masculine rhetoric of everyday life and/or temporarily turn it into their own advantage. In this thesis, the notion of gender is explained by examining the role of social life in the formation of gender identitiy. In this thesis, we analyse 'Is Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon' (Turkish: Bir Garip Aşk) which is the first Indian tv series aired in Turkey, and examine the reception of the tv series by certain participants. The participants in this thesis sampling are generally Kurdish women. Most of the women are confined in their houses, they don't work in any job and they are uneducated housewives with children. One of the crucial findings of this thesis is that the women prioriatize their viewing practices as an everyday life factor. On the other hand, another major finding is that as a TV series that include some concrete ideologies on feminintiy and masculinity reproductions might enable these women‟s desperateness. Besides, it‟s also determined the finding that the women establish a close relationship with the cultural elements seen on the series and that they reflect on theier daily life.