Abstract
This article investigates how Turkish dramas enable cosmopolitan dispositions and cosmopolitan identities within Spanish audiences, particularly the cosmopolitan identities expressed through banal cosmopolitanism and pop cosmopolitanism. Turkish dramas began airing on Spanish television in 2018, and despite Spain being a novel market with significant cultural, religious, and linguistic differences from Turkey, they quickly achieved nationwide popularity. In-depth interviews with Spanish viewers from different age groups and backgrounds, analyzed through the lens of cosmopolitanism, show that cosmopolitan dispositions were present for participants before and after Turkish dramas and suggest that curiosity and openness toward the otherness showcased in Turkish dramas play a central role in the reception process. Findings shed light on the transnational expansion of Turkish dramas in Europe and offer theoretical insights into audience motivations for watching foreign content, expanding the application of cosmopolitan concepts and revisiting cultural proximity and other proximity theories.
Keywords
Introduction
In January 2018, the Spanish television channel Nova premiered What is Fatmagul’s Fault? (Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne?), the first Turkish television drama to air in Spain. The decision was prompted by the global phenomenon of Turkish dramas (or dizi): since the mid-2000s, their melodramatic plots typical of the soap opera and telenovela genres combined with high production quality have captivated audiences in markets ranging from the Middle East to Latin America (Kraidy and Al-Ghazzi, 2013; Larochelle, 2023; Wagner and Kraidy, 2023; Yesil, 2015). What is Fatmagul’s Fault? became the most-watched series in Nova’s history, encouraging Antena 3 and Telecinco, Spain’s leading television channels, to air Turkish dramas during primetime programing (Marcos, 2021). Despite Spain’s vibrant domestic television production in recent years (Albornoz and García Leiva, 2022; Castro and Cascajosa, 2023), as well as its long-standing tradition of importing Latin American telenovelas (Hidalgo Marí and Segarra-Saavedra, 2021), Turkish dramas now occupy a permanent spot on Antena 3′s primetime and dominate the schedules of female-oriented channels (Marcos, 2025). Moreover, they are available through local and global streaming services as well as through fan-driven distribution.
Arguments used to explain the global success of Turkish dramas highlight the role of cultural proximity, television market dynamics, and Turkey’s soft power aspirations (Kaptan and Algan, 2020). Yet, the increasing expansion of Turkish dramas across borders suggests additional factors may be at play. Focusing on the case of Spain, which is emerging as a major new market for Turkish dramas despite cultural, religious, and linguistic differences between Turkey, cosmopolitanism can serve as an analytical tool to examine the intricate interplay between the global and the local and between media and identities in this transnational flow of content (Corpus Ong, 2009). Specifically, I draw on the concepts of banal cosmopolitanism, defined as cosmopolitanism bound up with everyday consumption (Beck, 2002), and pop cosmopolitanism, which refers to the cosmopolitanism rooted in engagement with popular culture from other parts of the world (Jenkins, 2006). My research question is: How do Turkish dramas enable cosmopolitan dispositions and cosmopolitan identities within Spanish audiences, particularly the identities expressed through banal cosmopolitanism and pop cosmopolitanism?
In-depth interviews with Spanish viewers from different age groups and backgrounds reveal more about the links between cosmopolitanism, culture, and consumption. Findings shed light on the transnational expansion of Turkish dramas in Europe and provide a theoretical understanding of audiences and their motivations for watching foreign content, expanding the application of cosmopolitan concepts and revisiting cultural proximity and other proximity theories.
Turkish dramas in Spain and beyond
Imported and domestic content coexist in the Spanish television ecosystem across streaming and linear broadcasting. Spanish television fiction has been gaining global recognition since the mid-2010s, particularly through Netflix productions such as Money Heist (La casa de papel; Castro and Cascajosa, 2020). At the same time, the rise of global streaming services provides extensive access to television and film from diverse parts of the world (Straubhaar et al., 2021). Spain’s main commercial broadcasters, Atresmedia and Mediaset, typically reserve the primetime slots on their generalist channels, Antena 3 and Telecinco, for domestic dramas and entertainment formats, while imported fiction tends to fill daytime slots. Atresmedia and Mediaset’s female-oriented portfolio channels Nova and Divinity, which have a lower average share, rely more heavily on serial fiction imports, as these acquisitions are cheaper and repeat well (Hidalgo Marí and Segarra-Saavedra, 2021; Navarro and Prado, 2019).
Despite being a recent addition to the Spanish television landscape, Turkish dramas have been expanding rapidly. In January 2018, Fatmagul was aired by Nova, where Latin American telenovelas predominated, but soon Turkey became the channel’s primary source of serial fiction (Hidalgo Marí and Segarra-Saavedra, 2021). In November 2018, Divinity aired Endless Love (Kara Sevda), followed by other Turkish titles (Marcos, 2021). In 2020, Turkish dramas transitioned from niche to general audiences: Woman (Kadın) was broadcast by Antena 3 in primetime – typically between 10:00 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. – as part of Atresmedia’s strategy to target viewers over 55 years old (Marcos, 2022). In response, competitor Telecinco began to air Love Is in the Air (Sen Çal Kapımı; Marcos, 2021).
Today, Turkish dramas remain central on Spanish television. Titles such as The Unfaithful (Sadakatsiz), For My Family (Kardeşlerim), and Golden Boy (Yalı Çapkını) have been aired on Antena 3 during primetime slots, and many of these productions, along with those aired on Nova, are also available on Atresplayer Premium, Atresmedia’s streaming service. Similarly, Mediaset Infinity, Mediaset’s streaming service, offers a wide selection of Turkish dramas. Moreover, Spanish television not only embraced Turkish dramas as imports but also as sources for local adaptations, releasing titles such as Alba, a remake of Fatmagul, Heridas, a remake of Anne, and La encrucijada, a remake of Cesur ve Güzel. These remakes follow a path in which they are first released on local streaming services, later broadcast on television, and subsequently sold to global streaming services (Marcos, 2025). Turkish dramas, therefore, have established themselves as a key component of Spanish broadcasters’ commercial strategy, offering cost-effective content, cross-platform distribution opportunities, and international revenue.
Incorporating Turkish dramas into Spanish television was a bold move, but these productions had well-documented success worldwide. Although the Turkish television industry is relatively new – television dramas only began to be produced on a larger scale in the late 1990s – exports in the early 2000s helped establish Turkey as a global player (Algan, 2020; Yesil, 2015). In 2008, Turkish dramas had their global breakthrough when pan-Arab channel MBC aired Gümüş (Silver), paving the way for the export of other Turkish dramas (Salamandra, 2012).
The growing popularity of Turkish dramas is often attributed to cultural proximity. For Kraidy and Al-Ghazzi (2013), Turkish dramas offer Arab audiences an “accessible modernity that is not wholly taken from the West” (p. 18). Similarly, Berg (2017) notes that Turkish dramas appeal to young Arab audiences by representing a modern Muslim society. In the Balkans, despite complex regional ties, Turkish dramas also attracted audiences interested in Turkey as an alternative modernity (Larochelle, 2021). In Latin America, audiences connect to the melodrama genre while interested in the exoticism and desiring to learn about Turkish culture (Antezana Barrios et al., 2021). Kraidy (2024), drawing on Jesús Martín-Barbero’s mediaciones, synthesizes these complex temporal layers as coiled temporalities: within a South-to-South framework, Turkish dramas evoke nostalgia and modernity.
In Italy, Berg and Sansalone (2024) investigate the reception among female audiences, focusing on how Turkish dramas activate cultural proximity through dubbing and shared ethnic features, but also highlighting that they facilitate intercultural dialog. In Sweden, Rahte (2022) explores this intercultural encounter from the perspective of audiences and industry professionals, linking audiences’ interest in Turkish culture to their multicultural backgrounds and the unique blend of elements offered by Turkish dramas. Tahralı et al. (2023) elaborate on cosmopolitan imaginaries activated by Turkish dramas and how young audiences in urban and rural Turkey and young diasporic audiences in Belgium responded to them, identifying that Turkish dramas challenge existing ideas of identity and imagined community. From the industry perspective, Sertbulut (2023) reveals that the Turkish industry associates non-Western audiences with economic capital, while Euro-American audiences are linked to symbolic capital.
Dramas from other origins have also become popular worldwide, and, similarly to Turkish dramas, their expansion has been studied in relation to cosmopolitanism. Investigating the audience reception of South Korean dramas in the United States, Lee (2018) shows how they encourage middle-aged women to expand their cultural experiences and perspectives, aligning with Jenkins’ concept of pop cosmopolitanism. Combining the perspectives of transnational audiences of Danish dramas and gatekeepers, Jensen and Jacobsen (2020) find that cosmopolitan proximity connects viewers with distant others through “stylistic curiosity and ethical/political interests” (p. 182). Jacobsen (2020), integrating data from Japanese viewers of Danish dramas and Japanese television industry professionals, describes how cosmopolitan buyers act in symbiosis with cosmopolitan viewers to create a sense of everyday cosmopolitanism through Danish dramas. In this analysis, she draws attention to the “cosmopolitan housewives,” described as female audiences who position themselves as “housewives” or “retired” and watch Danish dramas to fulfill a curiosity or appreciation for different places, people, and practices.
Consumption, culture, and cosmopolitanism are increasingly intertwined, indicating significant transformations in transnational media flows and audiences. Therefore, examining the reception of transnational dramas in connection with cosmopolitanism is fundamental. Cosmopolitanism is a defining feature of the streaming era: streaming services provide extensive access to television and film from diverse parts of the world, while Netflix deliberately uses cosmopolitanism as a branding strategy to support its expansion (Asmar et al., 2023; Elkins, 2019). Within or outside the frameworks of streaming services, transnational media flows contribute to banal and pop cosmopolitanism, as audiences have the opportunity to encounter otherness in their everyday life through visual media (Straubhaar et al., 2021). In the next section, I explore the definitions of cosmopolitanism and its relationship to transnational media flows.
Cosmopolitanism
A well-known definition of cosmopolitanism is “a willingness to engage with the Other” (Hannerz, 1990: 239). The cosmopolitan, for Hannerz (1990), is the opposite of the local: while the latter has cultural perspectives limited to their locality, cosmopolitans are open to divergent cultural experiences. Cosmopolitans possess the skills required to immerse themselves in the culture of the Other, thus also differentiating themselves from other groups of globally mobile people like tourists and immigrants (Hannerz, 1990).
However, the concept of cosmopolitanism has been discussed to encompass a broader range of individuals. Tomlinson (1999: p. 194), trying to incorporate the experiences of locals, women, and non-Western people, proposed that the cosmopolitan is someone with an active sense of belonging to the wider world, an awareness of the pluralism of cultures, an openness to cultural difference, and the ability to live in the local and the global at the same time. Similarly, Appiah (2006) stated that “the well-traveled polyglot is as likely to be among the worst off as among the best off – as likely to be found in a shantytown as at the Sorbonne” (p. XVIII). Hannerz (2007) recognized that although qualities of cosmopolitanism are more accessible for people in privileged positions, they can emerge in other instances, and pointed out that media consumption facilitates encounters with the Other for those who remain physically local.
Through consumption, cosmopolitanism is becoming an ordinary feature of daily modern life (Molz, 2011). Urry (1995) introduced the model of “esthetic cosmopolitanism” to describe the cosmopolitan predispositions and practices in contemporary consumer culture, stating that the cosmopolitan possesses real or simulated mobility, curiosity, openness, willingness to take risks, reflexive abilities, and semiotic skills. Beck (2002), to define the everyday articulations of cosmopolitanism bound up with consumption, presented the concept of “banal cosmopolitanism,” which consists in the non-reflexive experience of globality in everyday life.
Rantanen (2005) outlines five zones of everyday cosmopolitanism: media and communications, learning another language, living/working abroad or having a family member abroad, living with someone from another culture, and engaging with foreigners locally or across borders (p. 124). Media “offers the global ingredients for the development of cosmopolitan awareness” (Rantanen, 2005: 126). Szerszynski and Urry (2006), also discussing the relation between media and cosmopolitanism, argue that consuming televisual images and narratives of foreign places is a type of imaginative travel and, like physical travel and virtual travel, can contribute to a cosmopolitan disposition.
The definitions of cosmopolitanism indicate some cultural dispositions that distinguish an individual as a cosmopolitan. Based on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, Woodward et al. (2008: p. 211) explain that dispositions “enable agents to view events, objects and things in culturally unique but nevertheless structurally grounded ways, bringing to bear a particular set of cultural understandings on the world.” Therefore, cosmopolitan dispositions are the attitudes – “beliefs, values and outlooks” – and practices – “sets of learned cultural competencies which must be applied in particular social situations” – in which individuals manifest their cosmopolitan ways of thinking and behaving (Woodward et al., 2008: 211). For Corpus Ong (2009: p. 460), banal cosmopolitanism is “the most ordinary expression of cosmopolitan identity.”
For Atkinson et al. (2016), transnational media flows contribute to banal cosmopolitanism by putting viewers in contact with texts outside of nationwide programing. Although the notion of cultural proximity states that audiences are more likely to prefer national content or from countries with a similar culture (Straubhaar, 1991), streaming services offer extensive access to foreign content and accelerate the cosmopolitan project (Straubhaar et al., 2021). Additionally, cosmopolitanism is employed in branding strategies, with Netflix positioning itself as a cosmopolitan platform that “helps enable cross-cultural global community” (Elkins, 2019: 377) and “fosters global cultural connections” (Asmar et al., 2023: 34). Therefore, for people who lack opportunities to travel abroad or have contact with ethnocultural diversity, visual media is a resource to achieve a sense of banal cosmopolitanism (Straubhaar et al., 2021). The consumption of Turkish dramas can be seen as a sign of banal cosmopolitanism for embedding otherness into viewers’ lives (Tahralı et al., 2023).
However, the cosmopolitanism tied to consumption is not necessarily absent from reflection. Hannerz (2007: p. 71) argues that this “cosmopolitanism with a happy face” can get intertwined with political cosmopolitanism and grow into a thicker cosmopolitanism concerned with global issues. For Octobre (2020), the flows of narratives beyond Hollywood, such as Bollywood, Nollywood, as well as television series from South Korea and Turkey, can generate reflexivity and provide resources for individuals to establish their cultural perspectives, thus constituting “a breeding ground for a new cosmopolitan humanism” (p. 285). Jenkins (2006), discussing global convergence and the multidirectional flow of cultural goods, presents the concept of pop cosmopolitanism to describe “the ways that the transcultural flows of popular culture inspire new forms of global consciousness and cultural competency” (p. 117).
Pop cosmopolitanism represents a shift from a cosmopolitanism rooted in high culture into a cosmopolitanism prompted by popular culture. To illustrate, Jenkins (2006) describes how young American audiences use the consumption of Japanese anime and manga, Bollywood films, and Hong Kong action movies to distinguish themselves in their local communities. Pop cosmopolitanism, unlike banal cosmopolitanism, involves a more active engagement with popular culture, with the pop cosmopolitan individual walking “a thin line between dilettantism and connoisseurship, between orientalist fantasies and a desire to honestly connect and understand an alien culture, between assertion of mastery and surrender to cultural difference” (Jenkins, 2006: 127). Lee (2018) observed pop cosmopolitanism through the reception of Korean dramas as they function as “a tool for fans to gain knowledge, expand their cultural views, and differentiate themselves from their local culture” (p. 377). Transcultural media fandom, in this case formed not by young people but by middle-aged women, contributes to a deeper understanding of Korean culture and reflection on one’s own culture, resulting in pop cosmopolitan identities (Lee, 2018).
My choice for looking into the reception of Turkish dramas in Spain through the lens of cosmopolitanism relates to Corpus Ong’s (2009: p. 453) idea of cosmopolitanism as an analytical tool to observe “the complex relationship between the global and the local, between the media and identities” and uncover “how the underlying ethic of cosmopolitanism is enabled or disabled by media images and media practices.” For Corpus Ong (2009: p. 452), media audience reception research can be used in “searching for the cosmopolitan in the media space.” Ultimately, I can understand if cosmopolitan dispositions and identities were pre-existent to Turkish dramas, if they surface because of Turkish dramas, or if it is a combination of both.
Methods
To have a broader view of the transnational travel of Turkish dramas, I gathered data from the audience perspective using in-depth interviews, as they provide a venue to delve into how subjects experience and perceive the world (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). Interviews were conducted between October and November 2024 in Spanish and held virtually or in person according to the participants’ availability. Interview participants received a consent form and were informed about the research and the processing of their personal data before the interviews took place. Topics approached included participants’ backgrounds, media habits, and perceptions and experiences related to Turkish dramas.
Reaching audiences posed a challenge as I was often met with skepticism by potential participants, both on social media and through my personal network. On social media, my posts raised suspicions of being a scam, while relatives of colleagues seemed reluctant and declined my invitation. By attending a fan event in Madrid, I successfully recruited three participants. I also received help from a Turkish language school, which put me in touch with two participants. I connected with two participants through my personal network, three through Instagram, and six through snowball sampling. In total, I conducted 16 interviews with 14 women and 2 men aged between 20 and 67 years. An interview with a Spanish voice actor working with Turkish dramas, a tentative interview with one of the participants’ 90-year-old mother, and fieldwork notes served as complementary data. Interviews with five distributors working with Turkish dramas, which were conducted during MIPTV in Cannes, France, in April 2024, and fieldwork notes from MIPTV were also included as complementary data.
I used thematic analysis to analyze the interviews, as it allows flexibility and accessibility (Braun and Clarke, 2013). The coding was theory-driven, meaning I started the coding process based on the questions related to cosmopolitanism. With this, I found initial themes and subthemes, which were then refined into four main analytical themes: cosmopolitan backgrounds, media consumption, expanded knowledge, and critical reflexivity. Cosmopolitan backgrounds entail cross-border engagements not necessarily related to media consumption that participants have in their everyday lives. Media consumption explores their consumption of domestic and foreign media. Expanded knowledge approaches cultural knowledge that participants acquire about Turkish culture through Turkish dramas and additional resources. Critical reflexivity includes participants’ broader views on Turkey and Turkish dramas. With these themes, I tried to draw a progression that goes from a more banal, non-reflexive media consumption, grows into the expansion of cultural knowledge, and can reach new forms of global consciousness.
It is important to note that the sample is not necessarily representative of audiences of Turkish dramas in Spain, as fans were more willing to take part in the interviews. Thinking of continuums of viewership/fanship and private/public (Harrington and Bielby, 1995), most of the participants engaged in fan practices to some degree, positioning them closer to the fanship side in the continuum. Moreover, the rather cosmopolitan sample can be a consequence of my own background as a foreign researcher: despite it raising curiosity and prompting many questions from participants, it might have created distance between other potential participants and me, making it challenging to build trust or comfort (Seiter, 1998). Additionally, although age, education, and occupation are indicators of cosmopolitan dispositions (Keating, 2016), I had no clear information about class. Still, it is relevant to examine this segment of the audience, especially as it moves further away from stereotypes that dismiss television drama as a lower genre and associate audiences with a lower social status (Brown, 1994). Furthermore, it might reflect broader transformations in Spanish society and shifting boundaries between fans and viewers.
In the next section, I present more information about the participants, focusing on cross-border involvements with different places, cultures, and nations that are not directly related to Turkish dramas. I also discuss how these encounters with otherness dialogue with their viewership of Turkish dramas (Table 1).
Audience participants.
Milagros and Guacimara are mother and daughter. Silvia and Elena are mother and daughter. Concepcion and Dolores are sisters.
Cosmopolitan backgrounds
Cross-border involvements with different places, cultures, and nations, although not equal to being a cosmopolitan individual, allow encounters with otherness and can contribute to cosmopolitanism (Hannerz, 2007). In this sense, Hannerz (2007) notes that an ethnography of cosmopolitanism that explores broader experiences, commitments, and relationships can help us “discover” cosmopolitan individuals. Although this work does not constitute an ethnography, interviews included questions about the participants’ backgrounds and everyday encounters with otherness, not necessarily related to Turkish dramas. Such inquiries revealed that many participants experienced extensive mobility and engagement with people and places beyond the local preceding their interest in Turkish dramas. Moreover, their interest in Turkish dramas was often intertwined with their experiences of mobility.
Out of the 16 participants, six were born abroad and immigrated to Spain as adults: Concepción and Dolores were from Ecuador, Pilar from Honduras, Isabella from Italy, Silvia from Bulgaria, and Teresa from Germany. They have been living in Spain for periods ranging from 5 to 25 years, and the ones who did not have Spanish as their native language could speak it fluently. Pilar, Concepción, Dolores, Isabella, and Silvia mentioned the popularity of Turkish dramas on television in their native countries: Dolores noted that her nieces in Ecuador watched Turkish dramas, and when the airing of a Turkish drama coincides in Bulgaria and Spain, Silvia shares her impressions with relatives. Teresa, born in Germany to Spanish parents, explained that, although she did not know much about Turkey before Turkish dramas, she had contact with Turkish classmates and neighbors growing up.
Two participants had multicultural backgrounds that put them in even closer touch with Turkey, as their families were from countries formerly part of the Ottoman Empire: Elena had Bulgarian parents, and David was born in Romania and moved to Spain with his Romanian parents as a child. Elena started watching Bulgarian-dubbed Turkish dramas as a child on Bulgarian television, where they have been aired since 2008. David was introduced to Turkish dramas by his Turkish partner, but said his grandmothers in Romania had already been watching them on television for many years.
Other participants had encounters with other cultures through relationships, work, and travel. Carlos, who started watching Turkish historical dramas because of his education as a historian, has a partner from Ecuador, and they watch Turkish dramas together. Isabella, an Italian who has been living abroad for 15 years, is part of the international office of a university and works directly with international students. She was introduced to Turkish dramas by a Turkish-German student and, having an interest in foreign languages, started to study the Turkish language on her own. Although now retired, Rosa worked with international affairs for 35 years and was in constant contact with people from other countries. Rosario, also retired, has visited more than 70 countries on tourism and work trips. Josefa, a 66-year-old housewife, takes art history classes and has traveled abroad three times with her teacher and classmates, who are all around her age. Amparo, retired, is a volunteer at a cultural association in the multicultural neighborhood of Gràcia, in Barcelona. She described the experience of living and working in Gràcia: In day-to-day life, when you go shopping and talk, for example, at the fruit shops, one is Pakistani, another is from India, you know? And you end up talking to them. For example, in the association I belong to, there are people from many countries. I have indigenous people from South America, and people from many different places. And through the people you interact with, you get to know things about their culture. And you keep learning.
The information about participants’ backgrounds showed they were not unfamiliar with encounters with otherness, much like what was found by Rahte (2022) on Swedish audiences of Turkish dramas, who had multicultural backgrounds and regularly traveled. Evidently, such backgrounds do not automatically translate into being cosmopolitan: more than just moving across borders, it is necessary to move with an open mind (Holton, 2009). Moreover, they do not diminish the experiences of other participants whose backgrounds entailed more imaginative mobility (Szerszynski and Urry, 2006). Regardless, understanding their backgrounds adds more nuance to their cosmopolitan dispositions, considering that aspects such as living/working abroad or having a family member abroad, living with a person from another culture, and engaging with foreigners locally are some of the zones of everyday cosmopolitanism apart from media consumption (Rantanen, 2005). Additionally, although Turkish dramas allow viewers to make connections beyond local borders, interpretations of the cosmopolitan imaginaries portrayed vary according to their sociocultural backgrounds (Tahralı et al., 2023). In the next section, I focus on media consumption and cosmopolitanism.
Consuming cultures
When talking about their television consumption, participants expressed familiarity with domestic and foreign content. However, apart from occasional mentions of the global hit Money Heist, most participants seemed disinterested in Spanish series. Instead, they mentioned watching Spanish films, reality shows, talent competitions, game shows, and news. Dolores was the most enthusiastic about Spanish television fiction and was following Sueños de Libertad – interestingly, an adaptation of the Turkish drama Tell them, Black Sea (Sen Anlat Karadeniz).
K-dramas, part of a phenomenon similar to Turkish dramas, often emerged in the interviews, but none of the participants showed particular interest in them. Regarding foreign content, they had more to say about Latin American telenovelas, which many admitted to watching in the past. Rosa was a proclaimed fan of Mexican telenovelas, but after watching them for over 20 years, she got bored because “they were all the same.” It was then that she discovered Turkish dramas and switched to them. Other participants described similar experiences of switching from telenovelas to Turkish dramas.
Turkish dramas seem to supply a demand for novelty or content that becomes cosmopolitan for “sounding and looking different” (Jacobsen, 2020: 87). The novelty seems to be a central element in explaining participants’ interest in Turkish dramas, as they expressed learning about Turkey through Turkish dramas. Among the aspects of Turkish culture mentioned were architecture, cuisine, history, literature, music, traditions, and language. They also described learning about Turkish geography as the series are placed in specific locations and mostly filmed externally. For Amparo, learning about another culture is the main appeal of Turkish dramas: “You can watch it and discover what Turkey is like through these series. Its way of life, its customs, its culture. That’s what we like.”
Participants do not rely solely on watching Turkish dramas to learn about Turkey. They use additional resources: they follow actors, broadcasters, and distributors on social media, join fan communities, read news, take Turkish language classes, and, in some cases, travel to Turkey. The ones who did not have the opportunity to travel to Turkey have plans for the near future. Others have attended Turkish events, such as Lidia, who traveled to France to join Festiculture, a festival dedicated to Turkish culture.
These interactions with Turkish dramas relate to the notion of banal cosmopolitanism (Beck, 2002), in which cosmopolitanism is “more material, less about ideas” (Straubhaar et al., 2021). However, affirming that all the participants are using Turkish dramas to achieve a sense of banal cosmopolitanism would be premature, considering they are already in contact with other cultures in their everyday lives through work, relationships, family, or by traveling or living away from their homeland. In the next section, I show how participants reflected – or not – on their ideas of Turkish dramas, Turkey, and otherness.
Critical reflection
Before Turkish dramas, almost all participants expressed that they had no knowledge of Turkey or had very different ideas about the country. For instance, Josefa had negative ideas because of the 1970s American movie Midnight Express, which portrays the abuses suffered by an American student in a Turkish prison. Like Josefa, participants were surprised when they encountered a more “Western” mentality, as described by Rosa and Guacimara: Well, I thought it was a much more Islamist country, much more closed off. I traveled to Turkey (. . .) And there, I realized that it is a completely open and very European-oriented country. Well, obviously, it has a lot of Muslims, a large Arab part, but if you look at Istanbul, the modern part, you can compare it to Berlin, for example. I thought it was a more restrained, more closed-off country. A little bit European, so to speak, but I associated it much more with Asia and those kinds of ideals. And I still think that, but to a lesser extent. Because I believe they also have a strong connection with Europe and are incorporating European ideas.
Turkish dramas offer images of “the upper-class, elite, and westernized lifestyles in urban Istanbul” that help brand Turkey as modern (Tahralı et al., 2023: 207). However, as hinted by their statements, participants were aware that what was shown in Turkish dramas was not necessarily compatible with reality. As most Turkish dramas are set in Istanbul and show the lives of the upper-middle classes, they do not reflect the reality of the Turkish population. Teresa commented on the differences within different regions of Turkey using the series If I Were a Cloud (Bir Bulut Olsam), set in Mardin, a city close to the border with Syria, as an example: Istanbul or more touristy places, I suppose, are different from the more rural areas or places further away from Istanbul, more towards Iran or Syria, where it might be a bit different, right? (. . .) So, it’s a more remote area, with a mentality that’s not as Westernized.
Dolores, also referring to the differences within Turkey, said she looks up information online to understand more about the places where the dramas are set. Although most dramas she watches are set in Istanbul, she has watched two set in Mardin: Hercai and Sila. She noted the differences compared to the dramas set in Istanbul: “There [in Mardin], women are worth nothing. They always have to stay quiet and do what the husband, the boss, says. And I don’t like that.” Lidia also commented on gender inequality: “They sell their country very well, better than it actually is. I really like Turkey, but it’s not as . . . beautiful as they make it seem.” Amparo explained she liked Turkish dramas not because she related to them, but because she was curious about how others live: It’s not that I identify with it, because there are many things I don’t identify with, because there are many things I don’t like about what they do. Because I think they are very sexist, to be clear. But I like to learn and see how people from other places are. Not to copy them. Nor to make them more or less. But to learn. It’s the curiosity of knowing how other people are, you know?
The opportunity to observe the Other and engage with the difference seems to be a crucial element adding value to the experience of watching foreign content – for instance, a Japanese viewer of Danish dramas had an almost identical statement about being interested in learning about others and not copying them (Jacobsen, 2020). Furthermore, some participants showed awareness not only of the social context in which Turkish dramas are inserted but also of the economic forces that drive the Turkish industry: Turkish dramas must achieve good audience ratings in Turkey to be kept on air and then exported, and they are a cheap option for Spanish broadcasters. In the next section, I discuss the concepts of banal cosmopolitanism and pop cosmopolitanism within the consumption of Turkish dramas.
Banal cosmopolitanism × pop cosmopolitanism
According to the industry professionals interviewed, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 contributed to the expansion of Turkish exports. While television production in other countries stopped completely for months, Turkey had only a 1-month break and resumed production. Needing content to fill the programming, countries like Spain resorted to Turkey, which was a source of cheap and new content. Josefa, who learned about Turkish dramas right before the pandemic, had a reflection that resonated with cosmopolitanism: for her, watching Turkish dramas made her “resemble the rest of the world” but also “differentiate herself from the others.” While the people around her were, in her words, “cleaning the house” and “learning how to bake bread” due to social distancing measures, she had an opportunity to expand her understanding of the world and relate to people beyond her immediate surroundings: Everyone was complaining that their world had ended, that they couldn’t go out for a beer, that they couldn’t. . . And I was the complete opposite because what actually expanded was my world, my inner world, when I got into these things about other cultures, something I would have never considered, never. (. . .) I grew a lot internally because the internet screen was what opened up the world to me, what was teaching me all the time.
Josefa’s experience echoes what Jenkins (2006) describes about pop cosmopolitanism: pop cosmopolitans achieve a sense of distinction through their consumption of transnational flows of popular culture. Similarly to pop cosmopolitan fans of K-drama, many participants used Turkish dramas not only as entertainment but also “to experience a different cultural perspective,” including new insights into one’s own culture and the culture of the Other (Lee, 2018: 374). Therefore, engaged audiences like Josefa seem to be developing a feeling of belonging to the wider world (Appiah, 2006).
Other remarks reinforced the development of cosmopolitan ways of thinking fueled by Turkish dramas, exposing viewers to people and experiences they would not have contact with otherwise. Lidia, a housewife, explained that she has a daughter with cerebral palsy, and most of her routine revolved around caretaking until she created a fan account for a Turkish actor on Instagram. Through Instagram, she developed a close friendship with women living in different parts of Spain, and they traveled to Istanbul together. Moreover, they regularly organize weekend trips around Spain to meet each other, in a dynamic that surpasses the simple admiration for Turkish actors:
We have met many people from other provinces, we have traveled – I have, in my case, but I know of others as well, you know? We organize meetups, we see each other in Madrid or Zaragoza or. . . And a friendship circle has been created, so if you go there, you don’t see the actors, they have nothing to do with the men on TV.
Not all participants demonstrated such a strong bond to Turkish dramas to be considered a pop cosmopolitan, as it implies an active investment in learning and embracing cultural differences (Lee, 2018). Their consumption of Turkish dramas resonates better with banal cosmopolitanism as they form most of their views on Turkey strictly from what is shown in the dramas. Still, even in these cases, participants experience the imaginative crossing of boundaries and possess the cultural competencies to critically reflect on their encounters with the other mediated through Turkish dramas. These skills, although based on a more cultural form of cosmopolitanism, “can act as a gateway toward other forms of cosmopolitanism that are more ethical or political in nature” (Octobre, 2020). For instance, Rosa and Amparo described that every year, encouraged by a Turkish actor involved in activism, they raise money for charity organizations around the world, indicating that the sense of being part of a global nation enacted by their cosmopolitan consumption was translated into actions that align with ethical and political cosmopolitanism (Hannerz, 2007).
Considering how “slippery” it is to examine banal cosmopolitanism (Corpus Ong, 2009), we cannot infer that Turkish dramas per se make Spanish audiences more cosmopolitan, but we can observe that cosmopolitan dispositions such as mobility, reflexive abilities, curiosity, willingness to take risks encountering the other, openness and skills to interpret images are all present (Szerszynski and Urry, 2006). Interestingly, from an industry point of view, the audience of Turkish dramas in Spain is regarded as essentially “housewives” – their cosmopolitan qualities and engagement with difference were not considered. As pointed out by Kuipers (2012: p. 596), buyers and audiences are “many steps and intermediaries” away from each other, which could also explain the dissonance between distributors and audiences. However, these views also seem related to the fact that cosmopolitan values, identities, and behaviors are more commonly associated with people in privileged positions (Hannerz, 1990) or young people (Keating, 2016), while the audience of Turkish drama is mainly composed of women over 50 years old, many of them housewives or retired.
To fully embrace the tensions and contradictions that exist within viewers’ identities Corpus Ong (2009) proposes looking at everyday cosmopolitanism from a both/and perspective rather than an either/or perspective. In this sense, Jacobsen’s (2020) idea of “cosmopolitan housewives” better describes the seemingly contradictory cosmopolitan identities enabled by Turkish dramas – viewers are both housewives and cosmopolitans, even if at a banal level. Overall, participants show a “cosmopolitan proximity” (Jensen and Jacobsen, 2020), or a connection to the Turkish other, demonstrated through curiosity, openness, and a sense of global unity.
Conclusion
Contemporary consumer culture allows encounters with the Other that may lead to cosmopolitan attitudes and practices, or cosmopolitan dispositions (Woodward et al., 2008). Considering the links between cosmopolitanism and media consumption, I investigated how Turkish dramas enable cosmopolitan identities among Spanish audiences. More specifically, I considered the identities expressed through banal cosmopolitanism (Beck, 2002) and pop cosmopolitanism (Jenkins, 2006).
Findings reveal a circular movement in which people’s increasingly cosmopolitan dispositions drive them to seek out content that aligns with those same dispositions. Although cosmopolitanism has been associated with the elite (Hannerz, 1990; Straubhaar et al., 2021), most participants reported experiencing extensive mobility and engagement with people and places beyond the local, regardless of age, education, and social background, aligning with authors who emphasized the cosmopolitan experiences of immigrants and women (Appiah, 2006; Tomlinson, 1999). Participants had encounters with otherness through immigration, relationships, work, and travel, revealing qualities such as mobility, curiosity, openness, reflexive abilities, and willingness to take risks. At the same time, watching Turkish dramas appeared to stimulate these same qualities, even serving as a starting point for the development of cosmopolitan dispositions among audiences who did not regularly encounter otherness. Avoiding the attribution of transformative power solely to Turkish dramas, while also not underestimating their relevance, I argue that they function as a node in a process of developing cosmopolitan identities.
Participants expressed cosmopolitan identities along a spectrum from banal to pop cosmopolitanism. Across this spectrum, all participants mentioned ways in which Turkish dramas enable cosmopolitan identities: they appreciated the cultural differences portrayed in Turkish dramas; learned about Turkey through watching, searching for additional resources, or visiting the country; and sometimes expanded their social relationships beyond the local. In this context, social media, online fan communities, and the internet more broadly seem to facilitate the consumption of content that is culturally distant, as they help audiences “fill out the gaps” left by cultural differences. Yet, most participants were not as invested in other cultures as in the Turkish culture. Their specific interest in Turkish dramas, among all foreign content available, also stems from a preference for Turkish storytelling, an identification with certain moral values portrayed, and an admiration for the actors’ appearances. Therefore, it is the unique combination of factors surrounding Turkish dramas that attracts audiences.
This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of contemporary transnational media flows. While existing theories on cultural proximity remain relevant for explaining Spanish audiences’ motivations to watch Turkish dramas, findings suggest a more complex interplay of factors within the reception process. On one hand, broader political-economy imperatives, such as the strategies of Spanish broadcasters in response to the rise of global streaming services and the particularities of the Turkish industry that shape the content of Turkish dramas and their transnationalization, define what becomes available and how it circulates. On the other hand, cultural dynamics drive audiences’ choices, as they are not watching Turkish dramas merely because they are available, highlighting the role of both established and less explored proximities, such as cosmopolitan proximity (Jensen and Jacobsen, 2020). Therefore, considering the media’s potential to enable cosmopolitan identities (Corpus Ong, 2009), the combination of audience reception and cosmopolitanism constitutes a relevant strategy for exploring the role of cultural differences and distance in the transnational travel of media content.
Ultimately, I argue that difference and distance play a more central role than proximity within the reception of Turkish dramas in Spain. More specifically, this research uncovers the image of a “cosmopolitan housewife” (Jacobsen, 2020) engaged in pop cosmopolitan attitudes and practices usually associated with the youth (Lee, 2018). In doing so, it illustrates how the boundaries between viewers and fans are increasingly blurred and how cosmopolitan orientations and fan practices overlap within contemporary transnational media consumption.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.