"Valley of wolves" as a nationalist text

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2006
Çelebi, Mehmet Celil
This thesis is an attempt to analyze the discourse of “Valley of Wolves”, a television serial which gained a significant popularity in recent years. To understand the serial’s discourse I have first analyzed the general aspects of the narrative and approached to it as a televisual text. Concerning the political discourse two arguments, both connected to nationalism, is provided. First one concerns the psychology of the serial. Psychological mechanisms that the serial make use of is similar to Adorno’s insights concerning fascism which may be formulated as “acknowledgement of the weakness, identification with the victor”. The serial interpellates weak ordinary citizens who are impotent in front of powerful conspirators, and invites him to identify with the hero who is able to save him from these malicious uncontrollable forces. Nationalism constitutes the kernel of this psychology. Nation is the community of simple-minded ordinary people free of conflict: its inner harmony is disturbed only by external forces through conspiracies. In that respect, the serial depends on the logic of conspiracy and xenophobia. Secondly, the serial overtly advocates “deep state”, that is the break-down between legality and legitimacy as far as “the survival of the state” is concerned. It has sympathy for traditional mafia, but it essentially backs up illegal activities on behalf of state. Thereby, irt articulates a nationalist mentality and carries some important features of the Turkish Nationalism.

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Citation Formats
M. C. Çelebi, ““Valley of wolves” as a nationalist text,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2006.