Cultural Studies
P. Javadzadeh; M. Kowsari; M. Ameri Shahrabi; A. Abtahi
Abstract
Among the three main domains of production, distribution and consumption, Iranian national music has specifically received little attention from contemporary researchers. Music has a special place in the Iranian culture since it is shaped by historical and biocultural experiences of this society. But ...
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Among the three main domains of production, distribution and consumption, Iranian national music has specifically received little attention from contemporary researchers. Music has a special place in the Iranian culture since it is shaped by historical and biocultural experiences of this society. But in recent years, Iranian national music has not only lost its social influence but the audience and its social functions as well. Usually, music is distributed in Iran through its producers after obtaining official licenses and reviewing the content of a musical piece. Since Iranian national music is different in contents and requirements compared to other countries, using Western theories to understand its distribution mechanism in Iran may not be very helpful. Also, no research has been done so far to understand the socio-cultural aspects of the distribution mechanism of Iranian national music. This research seeks to establish a comprehensive understanding of this field with a heuristic approach as well as by using the systematic grounded theory. Data were collected via an in-depth interview technique, coded and categorized with three open and axial as well as selective instructions. 23 concepts and 8 categories were extracted from the data. Finally, using the paradigm model, the grounded theory is presented in the form of a story and visual model.
Sociology
M. Khoshnam; M. Kousari; M. Farasatkhah
Abstract
Students have interactions and communications beyond the official university systems which are informal and form many of their memories during the time of education. What matters is the students' understanding and perception of mental concepts of student life which should be discovered to narrow the ...
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Students have interactions and communications beyond the official university systems which are informal and form many of their memories during the time of education. What matters is the students' understanding and perception of mental concepts of student life which should be discovered to narrow the gap between higher education and university officials as much as possible so that the hidden layers of student life can be perceived and policies can be formed according to them. In the present study, a summary of the perceived, meaning and experienced student's life will be presented during these interactions. For this purpose, deep phenomenological interviews were made with 52 students from different departments and fields of study in the University of Tehran. Over the informal interactions and spending most of their times with their friends, the students have changed in many cases of their student life such as changing in human communication patterns, changing religious styles, changing the leisure time, an improvement in personal abilities, gender attitudes, changing in educational patterns, changing of attitude and worldview, achieving positive personal feelings, support and a sense of group affiliation, compensation, changing in social participation motivations, change in the socializing processes and the normative system.
Cultural Studies
M. Kousari; A. Tafreshi
Abstract
How an idea is born and how a marginalized discourse is outstood? This is the question that discourse analysts in various fields always try to respond. This responsiveness always needs filling the Archive gaps of discourse analysis, so researchers who have intention to analyze, with reference of Synchronicity ...
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How an idea is born and how a marginalized discourse is outstood? This is the question that discourse analysts in various fields always try to respond. This responsiveness always needs filling the Archive gaps of discourse analysis, so researchers who have intention to analyze, with reference of Synchronicity or diachronic, can understand and analyze the evolution of discourses in various fields inter-subjectively. This research is about to respond this question and understand women identity in the second Pahlavi discourse in contemporary Iran. In addition, this research tries to help discourse researchers to understand the nature of discourse controversy in the second Pahlavi era and in what extend the current controversies in Iranian society about the semantic hegemony on women identity these controversies have different or similar semantics with second Pahlavi and its affiliates' discourse. Based on the above matter, the Shah’s most important speeches along with Zan-e Rooz magazine, as a close magazine to the second Pahlavi's official discourse is being analyzed using Laclau and Mof method. One of the results of this research is understanding the nodal point of "being up-to-date" for the second Pahlavi's discourse, which stands in close attraction with “being social". This discourse has a big emphasis on beauty and appeal and marginalizes hijab, especially Chador, as opposing such epistemes with rationality and calls them dogmatism. In addition second Pahlavi severely antagonizes Marxism and religious identities, but if we want to discuss its dominant aspect, the most discourse controversies represented by Zan-e Rooz magazine and the Shah’s speeches are related to antagonizing religion and religious identities and deconstructing their bonds with women identity.
Masoud Kousari; S. Ahmad Askari
Abstract
The research investigated the issue of TV ads in the context of cultural studies and from the critical- cultural perspective. This study has focused on the family in order to read culture among the advertisements, so family from both the gender and generational relations has been analyzed. ...
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The research investigated the issue of TV ads in the context of cultural studies and from the critical- cultural perspective. This study has focused on the family in order to read culture among the advertisements, so family from both the gender and generational relations has been analyzed. The main focus of the research is on the policy of representation of TV commercials across the country about couple bilateral relations and parent-child generational bilateral relations in Iranian families, in this way the power structure in the family can be understood. Using qualitative methods, this research has done based on the general principles of semiotics and followed the principles of “first order implications” that is centered mostly in syntagmatic axis and “second-order implications” assigned to Roland Barthes that has replaced in the axis of succession. This research shows that TV ads in “subjective aspect of power” with showing mental images consistent with male-dominated system, and in “objective aspect of power” with showing stereotypes that in the first step men(sexual) and in the second step parents (generational) make the final decision, leads to reproduction of power gap and inequality in family relationships.
Masoud Kousari; Farid Azizi; Hamid Azizi
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the representation of women in the advertisement of Persil washing powder. This qualitative study is based on the semiotics method in order to decode the cultural stereotypes in the advertisement of Persil washing powder. The results showed that the representation ...
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the representation of women in the advertisement of Persil washing powder. This qualitative study is based on the semiotics method in order to decode the cultural stereotypes in the advertisement of Persil washing powder. The results showed that the representation of women in advertisements is often associated with a set of cultural stereotypical pictures and images. In fact, despite the intended policies to eliminate cultural stereotypical images in advertisements, they are still full of pictures and images showing women are subordinate to men. In the advertisement women are represented as those, who don’t have their own identity and are always in need of paternal- men’s support. Results showed that female identity is always a reflection of prevalent stereotypes in Iranian society. In terms of these stereotypes, women belong to the home and its environment, and the stereotypes seek to intensify relations with media images. In a real word, the media are in the wake of naturalizing the constructed relations by the cultural codes in the society.
Masoud Kowsari; Mohammad Mehdi Mowlaei
Abstract
Different genres of underground music are important issues in Iranian youth culture. The purpose of this research was to study masculinity in Iranian- Persian rap music. Therefore, Persian rap music as a part of Iranian popular culture, between 2001 and 2011 was analyzed. We used qualitative research ...
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Different genres of underground music are important issues in Iranian youth culture. The purpose of this research was to study masculinity in Iranian- Persian rap music. Therefore, Persian rap music as a part of Iranian popular culture, between 2001 and 2011 was analyzed. We used qualitative research approach. The main method used in this study, was "Constructive Grounded Theory ". So instead of using existing theories as a theoretical framework, the researcher sought to generate local theory from research field. Thus, using theoretical sampling, data compiled from various sources. The multiple data collection techniques such as interviews, observation, online observation, collecting documents and texts were used. Then all the data was coded with using open, axial and selective coding methods. Finally, 62 concepts and 16 categories derived from data and "plural form of masculinity in Iranian-Persian rap music" was defined as the core category. Then according to paradigmatic model, "Substantive Theory" emerged from the data, was presented as "story" and "visual model". Finally seven questions of Strauss and Corbin about the experience in research has been assessed to evaluating research.
masoud Kowsari; Ehsan Shaghasemi
Abstract
For a long time communication theorists have criticized public media for being unilateral. What they prescript is to transform pattern of communication into bilateral one; in other words, to make media interactional. Telephone is the first fully interactional, however, there was a long road to the contemporary ...
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For a long time communication theorists have criticized public media for being unilateral. What they prescript is to transform pattern of communication into bilateral one; in other words, to make media interactional. Telephone is the first fully interactional, however, there was a long road to the contemporary communication and information media which are highly interactional. Nevertheless, not all the modern media are equally interactional. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate levels of interactionability in modern media and strength them. As other concepts in communication, interaction has different definitions, implying various aspects of the audience-media relation. And this feature of multi-dimensionality is to be considered. Quistis (2002) suggests a model in which all the technical, social, and comprehensive aspects of interaction are inherent. In other words, not only the technical aspect of media, but also audience’s perception plays a key role in the model. Visual-computer games are good instance of interactionability in modern media. However, not all games are equally interactional. Analyzing a well-known computer game “Call of Duty”, this article attempts to study different levels of interactionability. The main question is: how can one offer a pragmatic definition of three dimensions of interactionability to study computer games; and how this features are in Call of Duty applied?
Masoud Kowsari; Tahereh Kheir-Khah
Abstract
Recently, cell phone, as an unlimited media, in comparison with others, has deeply changed the modes of interpersonal connections. Accessibility, and inexpensiveness, in addition to the transcendence of normal face to face relation restrictions, could be taken for granted as most fascinating features ...
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Recently, cell phone, as an unlimited media, in comparison with others, has deeply changed the modes of interpersonal connections. Accessibility, and inexpensiveness, in addition to the transcendence of normal face to face relation restrictions, could be taken for granted as most fascinating features of SMS. Therefore, content analysis of the SMS could help to clarify the communicative subjectivities in interpersonal communications. This study tends to analyze the content of 2651 short messages exchanged among 80 students both genders, in various universities in Tehran. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: Who are the main senders of the messages? In what time are the SMS s frequently s sent or received? What are the most frequent contents? Is there any relationship between the gender of recipients/senders and the content of the messages? Whether the contents are related to the marital statue of the receiver and sender or not?
