The Consumption of Turkish Tv Series in Cuba: A Study on the Distribution, Access, and Effects of Popular Culture

Abstract

In recent years Turkish TV series have gained popularity among the Cuban population. This is the first time that Brazilian, Mexican and Colombian soap operas -traditionally with many followers on the island -have been displaced by Turkish products regarding the preference of the national public. Access to Turkish TV series in Cuba isn´t through national television broadcast. The distribution is happening from an alternative network of informal exchange of audiovisual products. The popularly known "Weekly Package-el paquete" (a kind of offline Netflix with 1 terabyte of information that can be purchased clandestinely on the island for the approximate value of 1 USD) distributes new episodes of Turkish soap operas on a weekly basis. Hence, because of the informal nature of its distribution, it is very difficult to know accurately the audience rating and other relevant data of the reception process regarding Turkish Television Series. This study aims to explore the distribution, access and consumption strategies of Turkish TV series in Cuba from a qualitative methodological perspective. Since the study is the first research on las turcas in Cuba, it presents some valuable data on the current situation of popular culture in Cuba with a focus on Turkish television series.

Cosmopolitan imaginary: The reception of Turkish TV series among young audiences in urban, rural, and diasporic settings (Istanbul, Emirdağ, and Brussels)

“…This is not limited to Turkey or nearby Muslim countries. They have, for instance, also provoked public debate on rural and urban identities and traditional vs. modern lifestyles in Cuba (Herrada Hidalgo et al, 2021). In Greece, the series are used as a tool to negotiate Turkish and Greek lifestyles where they also offer an alternative modernity that is closer to Greeks than the modernity proposed by American TV series (Larochelle, 2021).…”

The role of online fan communities in the popularization of Turkish TV dramas in Brazil

“…More recently, works have been exploring the rise of Turkish dramas in Latin America, where the success of these productions is attributed to the classical melodramatic structure and the otherness: Turkish dramas offer familiar narratives portrayed in “exotic” locations (Antezana Barrios et al, 2021; Ashley, 2019; Cassano Iturri, 2021; Ferreira, 2021; Valverde, 2020). Moreover, the circulation of Turkish content through alternative means, such as online fan communities (Aslan, 2020) and the weekly package system in Cuba (Herrada Hildalgo et al, 2021), suggests that the informal distribution is advancing the expansion of Turkish dramas in the Latin American market. In the next section, I present how this informal distribution, combined with fansubbing and other fan practices, contributes to the travel of content, especially from emerging media industries.…”

Neo-Ottoman Turk-Scape: Analyzing the Role of Dizis as Türkiye’s Soft Power

“…The popularity of historical dizi have crossed all boundaries in Pakistan where then Prime Minister Imran Khan publicly endorsed them to what commentators have termed as an attempt to fill the "identity vacuum" (Behzan & Khattak, 2020). Several studies have acknowledged the success of Turkish dizis in the Arab world (Aydos, 2018;Berg, 2020), Latin America (Aslan, 2019;;Barrios et al, 2021;Hidalgo et al, 2021), Greece (Larochelle, 2021), Indonesia (Rakhmani & Zakiah, 2020), India (Pandit & Chattopadhyay, 2021), Pakistan (Bezhan & Khattak, 2020;Subramanian, 2020;Yilmaz & Shakil, 2021), Bangladesh (Sharifuzzaman, 2020), and among the Turkish diaspora in the West (Cetin, 2020).…”