CULTURAL STUDIES & COMMUNICATION
Year:2015 | Volume:10 | Issue:37 |Papers Count:8

The West has been a controversial concept for Iranians in the last century. Different identity discourses have tried to produce and fix different significations for the West and each signification has had its own social consequences. Given the unique position of state-run television (IRIB: Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) in Iran, the representation of the West in the popular programs can support or emasculate a certain identity discourse. In addition, because IRIB is a state-run media, the analysis of the West Image in its texts can show the key position of the West concept in the identity politics of state dominant discourse. For exploring how Iranian television historical series represent the West, this research applies a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to two famous Iranian historical television series (English Bag and Zero Point Orbit). The results show, although, the approach of state dominant discourse against the West affects the formation of both series, we can still see the presence of discourses that admire the West. Both series are at work to reproduce an ‘imagined community’ and construct a certain collective identity, and for this, they need to represent the West as ‘the other’. English Bag tries to build an Islamic collective identity and weakens the identity discourse that based on ancient Iranian values. In contrast, Zero Point Orbit does not emphasize Islamic identity clearly and instead fortifies Iranian national identity, although this fortification is performed in Islamic limitations of state dominant discourse. While English Bag problematizes some aspects of the West concept, Zero Point Orbit tries to naturalize these aspects. In contrast with the Orientalism discourse that represents the East as an ‘inferior other’, the research shows in the Occidentalism discourse of both television historical series, the West is not only an‘inferior other’ but also a ‘significant other’ that ‘the self’ shapes in front of the West’s gaze.

This research is conducted to analyze the perception of people with mobility impairment of the images representing them in 3 movies: M like Mother (directed by Rasool Mollagholi Poor), Beautiful City (Asghar Farhadi) and A Time to Love (Ebrahim Forouzesh). The audience of this thesis are the disabled people who have both the hearing and eyesight impairment. Therefore, the blind, the deaf, the mentally impaired and other handicapped ones that cannot use these organs simultaneously, are not considered. Applying the Perception Analysis approach in cultural studies framework, this research is an attempt to understand the way aforementioned audience perceive the content of these movies which are about the impairement phenomenon or represent disable people.Furthermore, the authors used the Grounded Theory analysis to categorize the findings appropriately. Thus, we tried to answer the question that how the impaired people perceive these movies. With a qualitative methodology approach, we used both the deep interview and participant observation techniques. The findings demonstrate that the audience perceive the movies in different ways and one of the main ones is gender oriented. So, they participate actively in the perception and recreation the meaning processes. We presented the finding in some categories such as commiseration, the impossibility of marriage, the companionship of the disability with holy matters and etc.

This article analyzes photojournalism & newspaper headlines in Iranian presidential election of 14 June 2013 by means of a semio-mythological methodology.39 photos & the related headlines -published in Iranian national press- are studied as unit of analysis. All visual & textual data is first described and then analyzed by Barthes’s 5 semiological codes with use of some structural tables; these data is finally interpreted by applying a new version of Barthes method, means Moriarty & others’work as validation analysis pattern. The final result reveals that: 1- the most repetitive visual code is the image of “president Rouhani”, winner of election. This visual code (photo) paradoxically represents the textual code of people which has the most textual referent code (means word of “people”). 2-Although this signifier (signifié) - means Iranian people- are all absent in visual codes, they are mostly represented as generated textual codes (Mellat). Besides, 3-“people”as a semiotic code retain one other paradoxical signified (signifiant) as well: “the other” who is ubiquitously “the image of the elites”.4-Furthermore, “Women” are totally absent in both visual& textual codes in both front page photos and texts.5-Finally, semio-mythological analysis explicates that“people” for Iranian press has no meaning than men.

Life style is a concept which is defined choosing the daily life; in a way that unlike traditional societies in which people has few replacements and similar among their life programs, in the contemporary society, the power of choice has increased due to the importance of self and personal responsibility as well as the advent of consumer society in life. The importance of choice in the society of Iran in the field of material and consumption of goods is already happening, and the variety of the number and change of the form and content of popular media in recent years along with the change in the appearance of big cities in Iran and the increasing attention paid to the process of consumption, states this matter very well. Here, consumption-oriented lifestyle is the result of choices and preferences, associated with the culture of consumption, and also expressive and dramatic.The aim of this article is descriptive studies using the semiotic analysis of Roland Barth and discovering the meaning of the chain of direct and indirect indications in the case study of 9 samples of advertisements in lifestyle magazines (Zendegi Ideal, Zendegi Armani, Zendegi Iran, fall, 1391 volume).The obtained results introduce a set of symbolic values that generally just in the appearance denote the emphasis on and verification of independence and the unique nature of person's identity and character as preferred values resulting from the model of consumption in the modern society, but the underlying message of the producers is in contrast with the freedom of choice and free subjectivism of people in the modern society, especially those addressing in the third world countries that could just be the passive consumer of goods and values created by the west.The end result of the analysis focuses on the formation of a grouped society the according to the economic and status layering.

Nowadays we are weirdly surrounded with consuming of goods and material things. Although consumption of various goods has been already removed economic requirements, today everybody uses various goods not for removing his necessities but for transcending and showing of his success and social position. For obtaining this goal, just goods are suitable for consumption that could be exposed and complimented by others. On the other hand, conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is an instrument to preserve of individuals esteem or to obtain upper social position and this way distinguish themselves from others. So conspicuous consumption for having diverse results; for instance, rising of competition and social separation, is one of the serious debates in sociology.In this research, it has been tried to study conspicuous consumption and its effective causes. This research consists of individuals more than 18- 65 ages in the Tehran city. Sample size in this survey including in 100 numbers and its sampling has been done on simple random sample so. In this research, due to assaying the relations of mentioned variables in theoretical framework, survey method and questionnaire instrument for information gathering have been used.The results of survey show that variables of economic capital, habits, taste and mass media are effective causes on conspicuous consumption. On the other hand, the variable of economic capital directly and variables of habits, taste and mass media indirectly and via taste affect consumption. In addition, the results of linear regression shows that among of independent variables in research only the variables of cultural capital, sex and basis of conspicuous consumption could reach to model, therefore the cultural capital has the most effect on conspicuous consumption.

It is often suggested that environmental attitudes and environmental behavior are related to people’s values. Recent researches have examined the relationship between environmental values and attitudes. In this research, environmental values have been measured based on Kaiser et. al and environmental attitudes, have been evaluated based on the NEP.Methodologically, survey method was applied with cluster sampling method to choose the samples. The main tool for collecting data was questionnaire.Overall results showed that subjects in environmental values and environmental attitudes received a high score. It also shows that there is a significant and positive relationship between environmental values and environmental attitudes.The possible reasons for this result was discussed in final part of the paper.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the Communication System in Malaysia and the role it has played in the process of development in the history of this country, especially after independent in 1957. Based on the finding of this study, the state of communication and media in Malaysia can be traced from two perspectives: 1-official point of view which is looking at media from the realities and demands of local geo-political situation for national development and 2- Alternative point of view which looking at media from western prescription and global standard of media in this county.From the official point of view, which is represented by the prolonged government coalition, media and communication cannot be independent like what so called "fourth estate" in Western context; rather it is part of the "national politics of development" which must play role as an agent for social, cultural and political changes in parallel with other aspects of the society.According to the alternative point of view, in contract, communication and media must be considered as "fourth estate" and its obedience and forcing them to play role as an instrument of policy for the current status quo is not acceptable.Historically, media and communication in Malaysia has been caught between these two trends and unbalanced status between them have had major impact on the quality and quantity of media development, legislation and media regulation and the roles that have been determined for the media in the process of national development.This article, however, without considering the above mentioned trends and their philosophical assumptions, is an historical investigation and analysis on the role of media and communication system in development of Malaysia, and also try to provide a comprehensive picture of what has happened to the media, mechanism of media and communication control, state of ownership, media system and communication legislation.As a conclusion, it is also an effort to highlight the most challenges that this country currently is facing after the emergence of globalization and age of information.