Journal of Iranian Cultural Research
Year:2008 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:12

Cinema is the most influential cultural instrument in the contemporary world. The seventh art first brought culture in theaters and then in homes by T.V. and modern audio - visual devices. Perhaps, for this reason, Andre Marlow paid special attention to the cinema and regarded it as a shortcut to the popularization of culture or achieving cultural democracy. Since its birth, cinema in France experienced a significant progress and was the best before the Second World I War. But with the entrance of Americans to this field, relying upon their modern technology and huge investments made considerable progress and challenged the French cinema. The French cinema needed government, help in this unequal competition and could not resist this all - out invasion on its own. The French government got involved in the sector of cinema to reach two goals: helping cultural and artistic cinema: and standing up against American cinema to defend the cultural diversity championed by the French. This article examines approaches results from a problem which is also considered a major concern for Iranian cinema. Relationship between government and cinema in France might absorb the attentions of our cultural policymakers.

The religious program of mass media exclusively produced for children have had a significant growth in recent years. The artistic expression of stories related to the life of the great prophets and to the history of Islam as well as taking advantage of theatrical literature in religious occasions can herald successes inthis neglected field. But, what is questionable in national religious policies in that why who are involved in the religious education of children whether in traditional media (family, mosques, religious communities, etc) or in modem media (textbooks, press, radio and television) do not follow an integrated and coherent policy based on a proved theoretical view of religious communications. In fact, this question results from the same old opposition between audience oriented and media-oriented approaches in communications as well as the opposition between cognitivism and other approaches in psychology.The findings of the field of study conducted by the author along with psychological achievements of cognitivism in human communications and cultural audience oriented approaches, especially reception theory in mass communications can solve some existing difficulties in the formulation of religious messages.Drawing upon the above mentioned theoretical schools, this article tries to introduce a useful approach to producing religious programs for children and describes the main tasks of mass media in this field accordingly.

Itineraries have been an important source of knowing cultural and social characteristics of societies, but this has been involved with some limitations in understanding, knowledge and interpretation. In fact, travel diaries are a kind of narrative. This narrative is restricted by time, place, situation and events. This article studies itineraries written by foreigners about Iranians and their cultural - social characters. This narrative has a pathological aspect, being dominant aspect in foreign travel diaries. Certainly, they present a biased and presupposed picture of our history, but they could be very instructive.

This article studies the evolution of role phantasm of "men in front of media". They have been called in a historical order as audience, receiver, user and recently communicatee.The author argues that the changing perception of "man in front of media" from a passive Being to an active being is the result of some developments the most important of which is globalization.The most prominent characteristics of communitee is its independence in "selection based on communicative needs". Along with the developments in the future decades in the field of ICT, the ability of communicatee for selection will be reinforced and it will become a selector communicatee. This article argues that because of the delay in developing countries in entering the age of Gutenberg galaxy and Marconi galaxy, message senders in these countries have an audience -oriented view. As a result, they have not yet become communicatee.This article concludes that audience phantasm in some developing countries may be harmful for meeting the need of communicatees by local media and make the productions of foreign media more attractive for local communicates leading to undesirable change in their cultural traits.

This article is the report of research conducted to answer two main questions; first, to what extent and under which forms using internet as entertainment is prevalent among users aged between 24 to 40 years in Tehran? And second has this kind of usage changed with passage of time (since the beginning of usage until the time of research?The research was designed and conducted with descriptive and qualitative method and the relevant data were gathered by using the techniques of deep interview with a sample (15 persons) of the statistical population of users (the first generation of internet users in Tehran). The findings show that using internet as entertainment among the sample is usual usages which include chatting, blogging, music downloading, browsing the webs containing pornographic materials and Orcat in terms of leaning order. The responses of interviewees show that after the passage of ten years, using internet as entertainment has significantly declined. Chatting, browsing the webs containing pornographic material and cybernetic searching in terms of learning order have been mentioned the usual forms in early periods of internet usage. 

Although the current age is called "communication age" so far many definitions have been presented for the concept of communications. This concept still requires a more appropriate and comprehensive definite. One of the serious problems in defining communication is the fact that its meaning is taken for granted and diffused in all aspects of life. This situation creates many difficulties in presenting a comprehensive definition of communication. The precise definition of communication not only can contribute to a deeper understanding of this concept but also, it can explain relationship between culture and media in another way.This article tries to study the different definitions and meanings of the concept of "communication", by using semantic analysis for this concept. This definition, not only provides a new perception of the conceptual meaning of communication, but also, makes possible a deeper understanding of relationship between culture and media as the most important mass media at the different individual, social and intercultural levels.

Religious education has an elevated status and a great value in Iranian religious society. Using different methods and instruments to realize this goal has been always considered by those involved in education. At the present time, television is an effective means for communicating with social groups. One of those groups is children who can be exposed to messages by animations. The effectiveness of animation is a function of the manner in which it has been produced. Therefore, we can ask whether psychological principles have been observed in the production of religious animations for children. This article, written for evaluating religious animations used in the television, aims at identifying sixteen principles governing the production of animations for children. To do this, the authors referred to authentic sources in psychology and media studies after gathering data and composing them, managed to identify the principles governing the production of animation. The numbers of these principles have been applied to the production of animations, a checklist was prepared and the data were extracted from analyzing two religious animations, two domestic nonreligious animations and two foreign non-religious animations. Non-religious animations were analyzed to make possible the suggested that the producers of religious animations pay special attention to do this point.

Social and cultural identity constitutes one of the most important aspects of identity. This article tries to answer the question that to what extent the youth interest in their social and cultural identity and which factors affect this. To answer this question, the authors studied different identity theories in the fields of psychology, sociology and social psychology. Having designated a theoretical framework, they formulated a casual model for research. This study was conducted by using the field method, surveying techniques and questionnaires. The statistical population of this research consists of the high school students in Shiraz. A four hundred persons sample including boys and girls was studied. To analyze data, the authors used described and inferential statistics including the technique of multi variable regression analysis, critical path analysis and factor analysis.The findings showed that the respondents have high interests in social and cultural identity with 92 and 75 percent respectively.

Religion and media are two important phenomena in today's Middle Eastern societies. In these societies media is a newcomer player which its history of presence hardly approaches a century while religion is among the oldest and most important elements and factors in the Middle East. This article is an attempt to evaluate the different aspects of confrontation and interaction between these two in the Middle Easters societies in general and in Iranian Society in particular. The aim of this article is to investigate the different ways in which media occurred for and against religion trying to show how religion has managed to use media as an opportunity and at the same time how it has been threatened by it. This article argues that cooperation and confrontation between media and religion has left a significant effect on these societies influencing deeply the process off formation of political and social culture of the people something that can affect the confrontation between tradition modernity in these societies.

This article tries to present a brief description of the most prominent Western cultural sociology schools and the reasons for their emergence.These schools are the subject of discussion in Iranian universities with a glance at these schools two common principles are distinguished among these seemingly contradicting schools. In practice, these schools describe their own Caltural Research culture, highlight their deficiencies and undesirable dimensions and identify their weaknesses. Then, relying upon this, they present some solutions for improving the living conditions of people. Western sociology Thoughts in the field of culture can somehow contribute to the understanding of the roots of cultural issues among Iranian thinkers. Therefore, this article is also a typology of prevalent cultural discourses among Iranians who are involved in cultural studies. This article studies three cultural fields: 1) Anglo- Saxon thoughts based on the humanities; 2) Francophone thoughts on the basis of semiotics and semantics; and 3) German cultural critic. Finally, the author examines the old and new approaches to the discourse of enlightenment and the Lyotard's post-modern approach. She concludes that a transition from sociology to the interdisciplinary cultural studies is necessary. On the other hand, cultural necessity and the issue of the geographical aspects of Iranian Culturology are among the subjects discussed by the author.