Culture-Communication Studies
Year:2014 | Volume:15 | Issue:25 (57)|Papers Count:9

The present paper is the result of a telephone survey, aiming at examining the attitude of 15 to 45 years citizens of Tehran towards music, focusing on a variety of available music. It has a sample size of 804 participants, and descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The results showed that 78.2% of 15 to 45 years citizens of Tehran were listeners to a variety of music. Among music listeners, 72.1% listened to “music with words”, 68.4% listened to “Iranian music” and 54.3% preferred “music videos”.63.8% of them were interested in “Iranian pop music”, 52.6% preferred “Iranian music produced in Los Angeles”, 40.8% preferred “Iranian classical music”, 28.3% listened to “religious music”, 26.3% preferred “folklore music”, 19.4% were interested in “western music”, 19.3% were the lovers of “rap music”, 16.9% preferred “Iranian instrumental pop music”, 14.54% preferred “Iranian instrumental classical music”, 13.3% preferred “underground pop music”, 11.5% listened to “non-rock music”, 10.4% preferred “foreign classical music” and 4.6% listened to “foreign folk music” at high levels. 45.6% of music listeners cared about “content” and 19.5% of them cared about “rhythm”.

As far as the international issues are concerned, human rights are often considered from a political perspective and its reflections. Meanwhile, the cornerstone of contemporary human rights has been formed based on the elimination of inequalities and major social-economic sufferings that were turned to an international persistent problem after Two World Wars and subsequent conflicts and crises. Therefore, within the framework of the critical school theory which benefits from the two important features (i.e. explanation of the ineffectiveness of "status quo" with the aim of achieving "optimal status" and its dedication to inter-mental categories such as culture, norms and common sense), this important part of the human rights is explored and evaluated in terms of the cultural issues. At the end, a number of guidelines for the design of new international structures containing a new discourse and also new concepts to promote human rights are presented. Two of these guidelines are legal consensus building with an emphasis on ethics of responsibility, as well as the formation of the union of support NGOs.

This paper tries to answer the questions whether it is possible to discover the cognitive dissonance among blogger journalists through their blogs and whether blogger journalists are suffering from cognitive dissonance. Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory is applied in this paper. Following up these issues involves understanding the content of blogs. For this reason, quantitative and qualitative content analysis were used. In this paper, the contents of the blogs of 20 journalists working in Hamshahri, Kayhan, Iran and Shargh newspapers were selected using purposive convenient sampling method and then they were analyzed. The results indicated that most blogs criticize the political situation. Blogger journalists are more willing to write using article style; and half of articles written by them have been evaluated as having cognitive dissonance. The results of this paper indicate that it is possible to discover the cognitive dissonance among journalists through the content of their blogs.

Constructivism is one of the methods of literary criticism that examines the social structures in the literary works. Ideology is one of the main topics of interest for structuralist critics and of important issues of fiction (story) writing during the Chubak's time. In his stories, Chubak challenges different ideologies prevailing in the society of that time, including social, political and religious ideology (patriarchy, social classes, etc.), through different ways. In this paper, ideology and its reflection on all Chubak's stories were evaluated using the structuralist sociology approach, from the perspectives of two famous critics of Marxism, Lucien Goldmann and George Lukacs. In the analysis and interpretation section, one of the major topics addressed by structuralist critics, entitled ' ideology', and its search in the Chubak's stories from social, political, religious aspects is discussed. Criticism of anti-colonial spirit of intellectuals, provision of an outstanding image of the political pressure, expressing hatred of the instability of the dominant situation, protesting the lack of freedom of expression, etc., are all the reflection of political ideology in the society of Chubak's time. In the social dimension, Chubak believes that the basis of all backwardness and stagnation of society at that time, apart from the inability of rulers and the presence of colonization in Iran and the dominance of poverty at different financial, social and cultural aspects, is the result of misconceptions from ideology. The reflection of religious ideology is almost seen in all Chubak's stories. In his stories, he describes the negative impact of superstitious and folk beliefs on his society's cultural malaise.

Today, the widespread presence of mass media in directing the world public opinion is one of the undeniable facts that and has influenced the contemporary world. This meaning has gone up to that point that the present age has been called "the Age of Media". In the meantime, addressing the obligation of enjoining good and forbidding the evil based on its privileged position in Islam and also in other religious practices is important for having desirable Islamic media. Accordingly, its elements and functions can be dealt with and considered with regard to the contemporary social and cultural requirements. There are six basic elements for communication in Jakobson's model of media. Each of these six elements has assigned certain communicative functions to oneself which include receptors, effort functionality, transmitters, emotional functionality, message, aesthetic functionality, code or codes, cross-language functionality, context, reference functionality, contact channels, and words functionality. In Jakobson's view, each message has a set of functions, but a function becomes dominant based on the circumstances and context. Enjoining good and forbidding the evil in the Islamic ideal media, not only indicate the above elements and functionalities in relation to each other and in a convergent and interactive model, but also manifest the media dominant aspect, i.e. the motivational functionality of the audience in facing with the message.

As a process of relatively deep transformation in a wide scope, globalization has changed, and in most cases, weaken almost all the structures of human life, especially national cultures that are the foundation of identity and civilization of nations. This paper explains the concept of cultural symbiosis among multicultural-ethnic societies and seeks answers to this question: given the inevitable process of globalization, how different cultures can come together to survive in a society where there are different cultures and ethnic groups? The methodology of this paper is documentary and it has been tried to rethink the concept of cultural integration relying on written sources and analytical approaches in the field of culture. For the analysis of this issue, the consolidated view of the theories of classical, contemporary and postmodern sociologists has been studied. In this context, the views of scholars such as Harvey, Fiderston and Fukuyama were analyzed as well. The results suggest that in the process of cultural integration in multicultural societies, the social and cultural changes are the natural phenomena in the communities. But if those changes are consistent with the national identity and preservation of ethnic cultures (and move in this direction), not only can help the cultural dynamics, but also can be a factor in enhancing the integration and national cohesion in multicultural societies.

Importance and significant role of the media discourse in general, and newspapers, in particular, on awareness, as well as directing and shaping public opinion is clear for every individual. In the second chapter of the press law that is related to the mission of the press; one of the missions is "To enlighten public opinion and raising the level of their knowledge". This paper examines the level of awareness, clarity of expression (explicitation) or vice versa, implicitation in some literary texts within the framework of the analysis of critical discourse of Norman Fairclough. Discourse-oriented structures of these texts include nomenclature and references, metaphors, irony and allegory. Data examination of this paper suggests that the application of the three components of metaphor, irony and allegory in the texts leads to the explicitation and implicitation. Regarding the manner of application, nomenclature and reference component can be resulted in the explicitation or implicitation and the fact that the newspapers describe the events based on their own views, ideologies and intended targets.

The culture of Ihsan is of issues that understanding its dimensions and realization is of human necessities. No society achieves perfection without understanding and spreading this culture. One of the current and future requirements of human societies is to institutionalize the culture of Ihsan. Caring about the excellence of the individual and society, teachings of the Quran and Ahl-al-Bayt (Family of the House of Prophet) seek to promote this culture in all aspects of people's lives. Therefore, the main question is "What are the human-promotion aspects of the Ihsan culture based on Quran and narrations? The phrases such as "O people" and "O man" refer to a change, transformation and transcendence of human life. The origin of Ihsan is to believe in spirituality and act in line with the requirements of humanity and its subsequent related issues. The methodology of this paper is to use analytical-survey and desk studies-documentary methods to collect required data. This was done through problem-oriented reference to religious sources (Quran and authentic narrations by 14 infallibles) within the framework of teachings of Quran and Ah-al-Bayt. The culture of Ihsan, within the framework of essential teachings of Quran and ah-al-Bayt, the origin of which is the purpose of human creation, is summarized in several dimensions: Faith in God and good deeds, do good to the people, forgiving, resorts and dissipation and management of anger, patience and Jihad.

The media narrative of events is not an objective narrative, but its representation is in the discursive and ideological frameworks. This paper tries to find out how one of the most important events in the Middle East (dismissal of Morsi) is represented by media having different discursive frameworks (Channel 1 of IRIB and BBC Persian). Critical discourse analysis is used to evaluate this paper. The results indicate that BBC Persian television used a liberal democracy discourse within the framework of components such as legitimacy of majority, the rule of law and equality for the representation of this Egyptian event. In contrast, Channel 1 of IRIB applied components of Islamic Revolution discourse such as support for Islamists, support for resistance movement and conspiracy of western countries for the media construction of this Egyptian event. In addition, Channel 1 served other discourses, such as democracy and the will of the majority for the expression of its purposes.