engleski

The Constituents of Audience Affordances: A Cultural Sociological Approach to the Success of Turkish Soap Operas in Croatia

The paper discusses one specific instance of the success of Turkey's export of scripted TV content, which has since the early 2000s become second only to that of the USA. “The Balkan craze for Turkish soap operas” has been interpreted in popular accounts as a sign of the audience’s recognition of the world represented in the TV products at stake. Likewise, the typical audience for such products has generally been taken to be “women” (viewed as an undifferentiated category). The paper attempts to offer an explanation of the success of Turkish soap operas in Croatia that would go beyond facile popular accounts centred on “cultural proximity”, but also beyond a cultural studies-style textual analysis centred on the “images of women” or “images for women”. An empirically based approach to the constituents of audience affordances was designed as an explanatory sequential mixed methods study. First, a two-step cluster analysis of nationally representative data on women’s gender equality attitudes was performed. Following that, the resulting typology was used in purposive sampling of interview and focus groups participants. Integration attempted both at the methods as well as the interpretation and reporting levels results in a broader picture of the researched topic, which includes a structural component. This research was carried out within the Croatian Science Foundation funded project on gender modernisation (GENMOD, HRZZ 6010).

women, audience, affordances, Croatia, Turkish soap operas, mixed methods

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