Nationalization of Spatiotemporal Artifacts: National Chronotope, Authenticity, and Local Colors in Danish TV Dramas

Abstract

This article investigates the conceptualization of spatiality and temporality in television drama series in the age of extensive digital media consumption by focusing on Turkish audiences’ reception of Danish TV dramas. Based on the empirical data collected through extended fieldwork in Turkey, and relying on Bakhtin’s concept of chronotope (spacetime), I analyze how research participants negotiate socio-geographical features, as well as both spatial and temporal textual representations signifying Danish culture and society by delineating “authenticity” and “local color” to distinct spatiotemporal cues in Danish TV drama series. This study reveals that by critically articulating notions of authenticity and local color as distinguishing markers of a particular spacetime, Turkish audiences employ these concepts as strategies to define “national chronotope” which provides a middle ground for reconciliation between the facticity of the geographical place and mediated images of space, as well as factuality of time and local temporalities on screen.