ABSTRACT

With the increasing popularity of Turkish television dramas, actors from Turkish TV series have become global celebrities with hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. In this paper, drawing on a political economy of communication analysis, we investigate the ways in which the Turkish government utilizes Turkish TV series’ actors’ celebrity status to further its foreign policy agenda with respect to soft power. We argue that in the Turkish case, celebrity diplomacy or the instrumentalization of celebrities for state ambitions of soft power necessitates a reliance on commercial television exports for nation branding. This brings its own contradictions and consequences as the image and meaning desired by the Turkish government does not always align with what the TV industry creates when competing in the global TV marketplace.

摘要

随着土耳其电视剧的日益流行，土耳其电视剧的演员已经成为全球名人，在全球拥有数亿粉丝。在本文中，利用传播分析的政治经济学，我们调查了土耳其政府如何利用土耳其电视剧演员的名人地位来推进其在软实力方面的外交政策议程。我们认为，在土耳其的案例中，名人外交或名人为国家软实力雄心的工具化，需要依赖商业电视出口来打造国家品牌。这带来了其自身的矛盾和后果，因为土耳其政府所期望的形象和意义并不总是与电视行业在全球电视市场竞争时所创造的一致。