CULTURAL STUDIES & COMMUNICATION
Year:2012 | Volume:8 | Issue:28|Papers Count:9

The purpose of this research is the assessment of the rate of tendency toward enlightenment teachings as well as the effective factors affecting the mentioned tendency among 18-40 year old inhabitant women of Shiraz. Theoretical explanation framework of the research is based upon identity oriented theories explaining social movements. Utilizing multiple cluster sampling, authors selected 400 women randomly and distributed the structured questionnaires among selected sample. On the basis of the results, the average of tendency toward the of enlightenment teachings among statistical sample was %65.13. Furthermore, direct positive correlation was seen between tendency toward the of enlightenment teachings as dependent variable and mass media consumption as one of the research independent variables. In addition to what stated, indirect negative correlation was found between dependent variable and other independent variables including social economical status, age, social capital and religiosity. No significant correlation was found between the dependent variable and cultural capital as the last independent variable of the research. At last, %25 of the research dependent variable variation can be explained through the independent variables.

Both language and role of the press in general are affected by “political power” and “civil society”, the two factors that are in turn shaped by political culture of the elite and conflict resolution mechanisms of the society. This framework that can be presented in a descriptive and analytic model can be used for the study of women’s press in different historical periods.Women’s press, since early twentieth century, has played an important role in the history of the press in Iran. This role can be seen in the 1940s and 1950s periods that were marked by a dispersal of power and fortification of civil society.The paper assumes that for the process of development of women’s press a “powerful civil society” is more effective than “dispersal of political power”.Basing on the same assumption, two important women’s magazines of the 1940s and 1950s were selected for study. Zan-e-Emrooz (Today’s Woman) from the early 1940s and Hoghoogh-e-Zanan (Women’s Rights) from the early 1950s are the products of two different situations in terms of the distribution of political power. The first was marked by a weak central political power while the second was marked by powerful struggle of the people for establishment of civil liberties.The paper continues with a secondary analysis of the critical discourse analysis of the two magazines to describe the divergences and differences between the two magazines. Finally, a framework for the study of the women’s press in Iran is introduced.

Cultural diversity is one of the main characteristics of Iranian society. This article’s main issue is study of influential factors on qualification of intercultural relations. The main question is: what are the variables that lead to peaceful and positive relations or opposition between ethical, religious and regional subcultures in Iran? After review of intercultural relations theories and literature and its place in social science literature, aspects, kinds and theories of intercultural relations are studied. The situation of diversity in cultural domains in Iran and historical background of intercultural relations that have often peacefully is defined.To study about current intercultural relations, some regions or contact points are defined experimentally and on this basis two important variables of changing peaceful relations to comparative –non convergence relations are “development processes and its advantages” and “identity highlighting”.The main argumentation of the writer is that intercultural differences in Iran are without structural-historical base.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the level of cultural capital and environmental behavior and study of cultural capital impact on attitude and environmental behavior. The research method of this study is survey. The statistic sample has included 440 over -18 year- old people in urban regions of Kurdistan province. This sample has been selected based on multistage cluster sampling method. Questionnaire has been used to gather the required data. The survey findings show that 82 percent of the studied people have environmentally responsible behavior. Also about 71 percent of the surveyed people have high level of cultural capital. Nevertheless, level of attitude and environmental knowledge is standing at medium level. In addition, findings show that cultural capital has the most effect on environmental behavior and played the role of most anticipator variable for environmental behavior. Also, there is a relationship between environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, marital status, and age groups with environmental behavior. Finally, probable reasons have been explained for the low level of environmental knowledge.

Postcolonial studies are of those new social science areas in the socalled third world which catches a lot of attention. The postcolonial studies are meant to clarify how the modernity, through Orientalism discourse, tries to establish a prescribed framework for the colonial treatment of the west to the east.Therefore, the postcolonial studies have chosen the difference recognition as its practical goal. Reaching this goal needs a certain kind of representation, namely, the image of self and the other should change. Therefore, it can be said that the postcolonial studies do not limit themselves to criticize the west, but the critique of self-image and the self criticism are parts of the postcolonial studies.Based on the above approach, this research tries to criticize the representation of Iranian society in Ghahveye Talkh serial, directed by Mehran Modiri. Therefore, the main question of the research is what is the serial narrative toward tradition/modernity extremes, in other words, if the Iranian society is represented as incompatible and irrational phenomenon toward modernity. using post-colonial criticism approach, deconstruction methodology is applied to answer this question.The findings of the research show that the dominant narrative of tradition/modernity contrast of the serial is a anti-tradition narrative. Based on this tradition, the Iranian society is represented as the other of modernity. Although, in several cases, the centripetal narrative of the film itself is deconstructed. But because in the deconstruction analysis, the goal is not to replace a center with another one, but also a solution should be found for this tradition/modernity extreme and be understood in the Iranian society. In other words, this tradition/modernity contrast is completely false and a third solution or the native modernity should be found.

The main question of the article is how people attach meanings to their body behaviors? By using a qualitative approach in the study of body behaviours, the article challenges the previous quantitative studies on the subject which neglect different meanings attached to the management of body by social actors and therefore concentrate on the explanation of the behaviours in terms of social factors. Drawing upon 27 interviews with women and girls (aged 20 to 34) in Tehran, and thematic analysis of the meanings of body management, three style have been identifies: 1: Identity-based management of body, in which body behaviours carry identitification codes, 2: Value-based management of body in which actors see their body as a field for investing and profit and values seeking, 3: order-based management of body in which people try to show their orderedness.

Urbanism denotes a distinctive quality of human community which is characteristic of the city. Urbanization is not a process of urban growth, but it is a final stage and conclusion of urbanization. Urbanism has been studied with the emphasis on Luis Wirth’s theory and Chicago school theories. Socio-cultural attitude factors in this study are include; self alienation, rationalization of individual action, decrease in social adherence, decrease of emotional relations and increase in individualism. In the process of gathering data, questionnaire was the main instrument in the form of a survey study. The samples have been 390 people (including males and females) within the age groups of 20-60 who have been citizens of 5 districts in Tehran. The samples have been selected randomly through cluster sampling. The findings of this current study based on estimation of Pearson Correlations Coefficient indicates that there were significant relationships between urbanism and rationalization of individual action, decrease of social adherence and increase of individualism. There was no significant relationship between urbanism and individualistic-self alienation and decrease of emotional relations.

It’s been for decades that Reflexivity, understood in its broadest sense, has enjoyed an undeniable acceptance in different fields of philosophy, science, and art. On one hand, it’s been deployed as a methodological concept in these fields, and on the other, it’s been used as an analytical instrument. However the point is that reflexivity, in any sense of the word and in any field, has always been associated with possibilities of critique; and this critical competence has made reflexivity a popular concept since the past century. Furthermore, and apart from its critical and negative capabilities, reflexivity is also able to make new things possible by creating alternative spaces, and these affirmative possibilities are nonetheless based on this primary negation. Reflexivity has different significations according to different interpretive schemes, they may be epistemological, methodological, aesthetical, ethical or political. In the present article, and after a short introduction to this term, we will explore the ethical possibilities of reflexivity in the narrative of ‘Close-up’.