Boycotting Neo-Ottoman Cool: Geopolitics and Popular Media Industries in the Egypt-Turkish Row Over Television Drama

• In Event: Civic TV: International Approaches to Audience, Industry, and Policy

Abstract

In the 2000s Turkish-Arab relations warmed up, and the rising popularity of Turkish television drama in the Arab world was part of an overall ‘zero-problem with neighbors’ realignment initiated by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). However, Turkey's involvement in the Arab uprisings complicated this rapprochement. The Turkish government supported elected Muslim Brotherhood governments in Tunisia and Egypt out of doctrinal proximity, and entered the fray of the Syrian uprising against the incumbent regime of Bashar al-Assad. After the Egyptian military deposed elected president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi president in a June 2013 coup. Egypt-Turkish relations took a sharp negative turn, manifest in the Egyptian media industry-led boycott of Turkish television drama. Through an analysis of Arabic-language, mostly Egyptian primary sources, this paper analyzes the geopolitical, economic and media dimensions of the Egyptian boycott of Turkish productions from Egypt’s perspective, casting a new light on state-media relations in the Arab world and the interaction of media industries with shifting geopolitics.

Author

• Marwan M. Kraidy, Annenberg, University of Pennsylvania