Omar Al-Ghazzi to speak at University of Illinois Symposium

Omar Al-Ghazzi

Doctoral student Omar Al-Ghazzi will speak at the “Sixth Annual Turkish Studies Symposium:  Turkish Transnational Television - Reshaping of Diaspora Identities in Europe and the Rise of a Regional Cultural Hegemon” at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to present Neo-Ottaman Cool: The Rise of Turkey in Arab Media Space (based on an article with Annenberg Prof. Marwan M. Kraidy).
 

Presentation abstract:

This paper explores the spectacular rise of Turkey in Arab media space as one of the most intriguing facets of Turkey’s rising role in global affairs, and one of the most important recent developments in transnational political communication in the Middle East. Based on an extensive textual analysis of the recent coverage of Turkey in a variety of pan-Arab and national daily newspapers and magazines, we identify and analyze different themes in Arab public discourse about Turkey’s rise as a regional great power. First we discuss a long Turkish-Arab history of mutual stereotyping in books, film and television. Second we explain the emergence of Turkey as a key geopolitical and diplomatic player in the Middle East, heavily covered in Arab media. Third, we analyze the recent pan-Arab popularity of Turkish television drama and cinema. Finally, we discuss the launch of TRT7-al-Turkiyya, a Turkish Arabic language satellite television channel based in Istanbul and Beirut, signaling the official entrance of Turkey into the global battle for Arab public opinion.
 

In combination, this essay concludes, Turkey’s new Arab-friendly foreign policy pronouncements, the rise of its “soft power” through popular culture, and the establishment of a government-operated Arabic language satellite television channel, promote Turkey to Arabs as a soft sell and contribute decisively to the construction of what we call Neo-Ottoman Cool.Against the backdrop of Turkey imperial Ottoman history with the Arabs, the rise of Turkey in Arab media space compels a rethinking not only of media and geopolitics in the Middle East, but also of our understandings of the links between media, history and political identity. Neo-Ottoman Cool, we argue, is grounded in a Turkish-inflected accessible modernity that is highly attractive to Arabs because it manages to combine a variety of hitherto separate and seemingly contradictory political, economic and socio-cultural elements in one seductive “package,” what one Arab columnist captured as “[A] European, Islamic, Secular, Capitalist Turkey.” The essay ends with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities that “soft power” affords Turkey in a changing world order.