A SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF AUTEUR THEORY IN CINEMA IN GRADUATE THESES IN TURKEY

This study was carried out in order to reveal the current outlook of the postgraduate theses in the Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema in the YÖK Thesis Centre by using the systematic search method and to help future studies by providing data. For this purpose, the YÖK Thesis database was searched systematically by using the keywords ‘auteur’ and ‘auteur theory’ at the end of December 2023, and a total of 252 postgraduate thesis studies were reached. After limiting the total number of outof-field theses, the sample number was reduced to 48. The distribution of the theses on auteur theory between 2002 and 2023 according to years, their distribution on the basis of universities, the distribution of the language in which the theses were written, the gender distribution of the thesis authors, the distribution of the advisor profile of the theses, the directors examined within the framework of auteur theory and the country cinema distribution of the directors were analysed and evaluated. In the study, 48 theses were analyzed, 46 of which were master’s theses and 2 of which were doctoral theses. Between 2018 and 2023, there was an increase in the number of theses analyzed using auteur theory. Marmara University, Atatürk University, and Ankara University were the universities with the highest number of theses. In the distribution of directors by country, there were 26 Turkish directors, 4 Iranian and American directors, 2 French, Kyrgyz, and Mexican directors, and 1 Kurdish, Japanese, British, Canadian, Austrian, and Macedonian director.