From Seekers of Truth to Masters of Power: Televised Stories in a Post-Truth World

This article proposes an allegorical reading of a Turkish TV serial to allow an assessment of the politico-cultural atmosphere of the ephemeral present. This present is defined as a world of post-truth where competing universalisms produce a condition of antithetical truths, each of which claims to be the only possible truth. It is argued that these truths are products of a situated antagonistic struggle, which, rather than indicating a firm belief, are used to serve the purposes of a game of power seeking. The search for truth in the battle of good against evil, characteristic of melodrama, is, however, what allows for narrative continuity in serials. Refusing to consider politics and culture as two separate domains, the article explores the ways the structure of game both as a narrative genre and as a way of conducting politics characterizes the world of post-truth.