Turkish tv series in the perception of soft power

Soft power, which means increasing the popularity of countries over other countries without using hard power such as war and economic sanctions, has recently become a popular subject studied in both international relations and communication sciences. At this point, soft power focuses on the influence of a country's cultural values in shaping perceptions of other countries. The media plays an important role in the transfer of cultural influences. It can be stated that especially television series are very effective in conveying the values, cultures and habits of countries to other countries, and in this context, they attract more attention than other media productions. While the effectiveness of TV series in terms of cultural transfer is examined with scientific studies, this activity is generally handled in the example of television series produced by Western countries. However, Turkey has recently become a country that conveys its cultural values to the world through serials. Turkey, which was a country that imported TV series until the 2000s, has taken important steps in this sector since the 2000s. Productions/series shot since the 2000s have begun to be exported abroad. While the revenue from these TV series was 100 thousand dollars in 2008, this figure reached approximately 400 million dollars in 2018. In this sense, the process in which Turkey has developed emerges as a subject that needs to be investigated. In this study, the role of Turkish TV series as a tool for cultural interaction and soft power is examined in the sample of foreign students studying in Turkey. Within the scope of the study, first of all, the five most exported Turkish TV series were analyzed by content analysis method. Then, a questionnaire was applied to 662 foreign students studying in Turkey. As a result of the qualitative analysis of the research, it has been revealed that in Turkish TV series, the cultural values of Turkey are not represented as they are, and various places in Istanbul are generally shown as attraction in Turkish TV series. On the other hand, it has been determined that the students also get to know Turkey and Turkish culture through serials, and in this sense, serials play a positive role in Turkey's soft power.