Delegitimation of a cultural product : the case of Turkish television drama Behzat Ç.

Abstract

This thesis examines the de-legitimation of a cultural product. Although legitima-tion of consumption practices and products and its role in formation of markets has been studied in consumer research, scant attention have been paid to cases in which practices and products are de-legitimated. Using an array of qualitative methods, I fo-cus on the case of Turkish television drama Behzat Ç., which was criticized and scru-tinized by a group of actors including parliament members and regulatory institutions. Drawing on the concept of legitimacy in institutional theory and Bourdieu’s conceptu-alization of homologies between fields, I investigate de-legitimation, its consequences for the producers and viewers of the drama, and reverberations for the Turkish TV dramas market (organizational field level) and Turkish society in general (societal lev-el). I map out the relations between different actors in legitimation-de-legitimation dy-namic, mechanisms utilized in de-legitimating Behzat Ç., and the ways in which de-legitimation damages the marketplace presence of the drama. I demonstrate the role of changes in prevailing norms and values at the organizational field and societal levels in de-legitimation. I discuss the implications of my findings for the legitimation-de-legitimation dynamic, consumer resistance, and relations between definitions of legit-imacy at different levels.