The interaction of the global audience around Netflix Turkey content on social media

Abstract

The direction of the globalization of media content has been a critical question in media studies. While many scholars criticize the Western-centric flow of communication and label globalizing media as an instrument of international power structures, the advent of Web 2.0 raised the bar for the optimists thanks to its ability to decentralize and defy the hegemony within the traditional global media. Specifically, the worldwide success of the Turkish series challenged the media imperialism perspective since they gained millions of global viewers. In addition to the demand rates for Turkish productions, their growing sphere of circulation, and the increase of economic revenues, the rising interest in Turkish celebrities also deserves attention in understanding the scope of this transformation. The feedback of the foreign audience to Turkish production and celebrities on social media offers a chance to understand in what way this transformation is experienced. The more they respond to the artist, content, quality of the production, and even the Turkishness and/ or Turkey through likes, comments, reposts, citations, tags, the more globally a local media production is experienced. This chapter focuses on the interaction of the global audience on Netflix Turkey and the main celebrities' social media accounts. Together with the frequency of their feedback, the perception of Turkish productions, celebrities, and culture is also evaluated. Thus, it is aimed to gain insight into the experience of the reverse flow of the media content. © 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.