Occidentalism in Turkey: Questions of Modernity and National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting

✍ Scribed by Meltem Ahiska

• Publisher: Tauris Academic Studies
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 282
• Series: Library of Modern Middle East Studies
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From the early Attaturk years, Turkish radio broadcasting was seen as a great hope for sealing the national identity of the new Turkish Republic. Since the inaugural broadcast in 1927, the national elite designed radio broadcasting to represent the ''voice of a nation.'' Here Meltem Ahiska reveals how radio broadcasting actually showed Turkey’s uncertainty over its position in relation to Europe. While the national elite wanted to build their own Turkish identity, at the same time they desired recognition from Europe that Turkey was now a Westernized modern country. Ahiska shows how these tensions played out over the radio in the conflicting depictions and discrepancies between the national elite and ''the people,'' ''cosmopolitan'' Istanbul and ''national'' Ankara, and men and women (especially in Radio drama). Through radio broadcasting we can see how Occidentalism dictated the Turkish Republic’s early history and shaped how modern Turkey saw itself.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
1. Introduction: Radio Technology and the Imaginaries of Modernity and Nation......Page 12
2. Occidentalism: History and Theory......Page 40
3. The Studio and The 'Voice of the Nation'......Page 76
4. London Calling Turkey: Dialogic Yet Competing Truths......Page 104
5. Radio Talks: The Forever Young Nation......Page 140
6. Radio Drama: Familiarising the Modern Nation......Page 170
7. Conclusion: Further Reflections on Occidentalist Hegemony......Page 194
Notes......Page 208
Sources and References......Page 250
Index......Page 274