Globalization of the Content

As a Latin expression, “Ubi ars, ibi patria”–where there is art, it is my country – has always reflected artists and creative people’s state of mind all around the world. In search of freedom of expression, availability of the physical and intellectual instruments required for the creation process, and a cultural climate embracing their work, they have been on endless journeys worldwide. In fact, people in any creative industry, including media and communication, yearn for encouraging environments to make their imagination come true and witness their ideas inspire as broad an audience as possible. Throughout history, many different cities or countries have been glamorized by such people only because they could blossom professionally and artistically in that environment. At least, that must have been felt more before the globalization of the media through digital technologies, where countless artistic work circulates through the applications on digital media devices of millions of global audiences.

In a world of digital spheres, where artists collaborate despite regional distances, local media content becomes more and more accessible globally, and countries make transnational communication so eligible as possible politically, economically, and legally, globalization deserves a closer look. From production to distribution and consumption, global media interplays with rapidly changing dynamics as well as arts. This book aims to develop a profound insight into the form and content of the media in globalization concerning works of art.

Significantly, this book approaches globalization phenomenon as an endless process; the world gets culturally, technologically, and allegorically closer each day. Several apparent reasons include enhancements in rapidly developing technologies and their widespread accessibility. Implying McLuhan’s contribution to the field and theories on the Global Village, the book seeks to question ways of globalization of national/local content, artists, and brands in a globalizing world. The ensemble of the chapters primarily addresses globalization from the perspective of the works of creative industries. It has a particular scope in which prominent cases from Turkey are focused.

In the first chapter, titled “Ways of Streaming in Turkey: A Structural Analysis of the BluTV Case and Discovery’s Investment in the Turkish SVOD Service,” Tetik investigates Turkish SVOD service, BluTV’s perspective on the globalization its attempt to be global after the investment of Discovery. In the following chapter, Ömer Vatanartıran aims to broaden an understanding of the global impact of Turkish Netflix original series on international subscribers by focusing on social media interactions. While Neslihan Uysal offers a collection of seminal and contemporary debates, arguments, and studies on global advertising issues in her chapter, Öykü Türkeli and Eren Demirkıran’s chapter search for the effects of not-for-profit messages targeting the global luxury fashion brands.

In the chapter called “Glocalization in a Globalized World: Balancing Global Trends with Local Realities,” Burcu Eker Akgöz and Elif Engin examine the development of globalization, location, and glocalization concepts with different examples from the world and Turkey. Elif Atayman traces the usage of global databases in the national elections and its relation to political communication. Neşe Mesutoğlu’s chapter focuses on the usage of the discourse in art news and critical debates on national cases. While Ertuğrul Süngü’s chapter presents a comprehensive look at the Turkish Gaming Industry’s glocalization process, in her chapter, Ece Arıhan questions how Peak, a small Turkish startup mobile game company, became one of the most prominent mobile game developers in the world. Özgecan Karadağlı Kuntz’s chapter is based on the transformation and re-transformation of music in particular focuses and specific perspectives. In his chapter, İsmet Aydın investigates significant cases from Turkey concerning World Music as the audial transformation of folk music.

From the first to the last chapter, this study brings significant research, collections of the literature, and contemporary debates from Turkey regarding the globalization of creative industries’ works. Therefore, Globalization of the Content: Critical Cases from Media, Communication, and Art in Turkey covers a comprehensive collection of research and studies that discovers and questions critical cases in media studies, primarily focusing on globalization, localization, and glocalization. It features a broad range of topics based on particular cases from Turkey, including content streaming, subscription-video-on-demand services, global audience interaction, global advertising issues, not-for-profit campaigns, the use of global databases in political campaigns, art news in global, the Turkish gaming industry, and glocalization, the globalization of the mobile game industry, the transformation of music, and particularly the audial transformation of traditional music; this book is designed for scholars, researchers, and media professionals. As editors, we hope that all the chapters explained below will bridge the gap between meanings, broaden new horizons, and contribute to further research.