Cultural Studies
Mohammad Rashid Soofi; A. Ravadrad
Abstract
This paper aims to introduce a mixed research method for the analysis, reading, and interpretation of urban visual culture texts. To reach this goal, mural have been chosen as the most outstanding urban visual text. In order to do a case study, one of the outstanding wall-paintings located in Tehran`s ...
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This paper aims to introduce a mixed research method for the analysis, reading, and interpretation of urban visual culture texts. To reach this goal, mural have been chosen as the most outstanding urban visual text. In order to do a case study, one of the outstanding wall-paintings located in Tehran`s Vanak square, has been selected to be analyzed by a mixed method. The analysis of the visual text has been done in two stages including semiology and discourse analysis. For the first stage, we used O`Toole`s semiotic method suitable for analyzing urban murals, and for the second stage, we employed Laclau and Mouffe`s discourse theory. Findings of the case study for the micro level showed that, key signifiers - as nodal points - of the text have been recognized as nature, city, man, and woman and the relationship and interaction between them have been distinguished in the form of binary oppositions such as nature (village)/city and man/woman. At the macro level, the main competitive discourses identified in the text, are Environmental Protection vs. Urban Sprawl and Masculism vs. Feminism, that are lively and actively in an antagonistic situation using their key signifiers. Finally, the dominant and hegemonic discourses through positive representation of their key signifiers can be considered as Environmental Protection and Masculism.
Cultural Studies
N. Mousapour; L. Falahati; M. Mazinani
Abstract
Semiotics is the science of studying the sign systems and, in fact, an interpretive process for understanding the hidden truth behind the signs, mysteries, and signs and cultural symbols. In addition, semiotics tells us that structures can be meaningful. The sign system in the Islamic Republic of Iran ...
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Semiotics is the science of studying the sign systems and, in fact, an interpretive process for understanding the hidden truth behind the signs, mysteries, and signs and cultural symbols. In addition, semiotics tells us that structures can be meaningful. The sign system in the Islamic Republic of Iran is very important because of the creation of a new Shiite identity. The present study examines the process of transition from political symbols to social symbols in the stamps between 1979- 2001 as a cultural instrument of the Islamic Republic of Iran through a combination of content analysis and semiotics. The findings of this study indicate that the process of changing the emblems on stamps between 1979- 2001 indicates that the Islamic Republic of Iran's legitimacy has shifted from rulers to society and from political to social.
Political Science
R. Sarhaddi Ghahri; M. Najafzadeh
Abstract
Semiotics is the science of studying the sign systems and, in fact, an interpretive process for understanding the hidden truth behind the signs, mysteries, and signs and cultural symbols. In addition, semiotics tells us that structures can be meaningful. The sign system in the Islamic Republic of Iran ...
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Semiotics is the science of studying the sign systems and, in fact, an interpretive process for understanding the hidden truth behind the signs, mysteries, and signs and cultural symbols. In addition, semiotics tells us that structures can be meaningful. The sign system in the Islamic Republic of Iran is very important because of the creation of a new Shiite identity. The present study examines the process of transition from political symbols to social symbols in the stamps between 1979- 2001 as a cultural instrument of the Islamic Republic of Iran through a combination of content analysis and semiotics. The findings of this study indicate that the process of changing the emblems on stamps between 1979- 2001 indicates that the Islamic Republic of Iran's legitimacy has shifted from rulers to society and from political to social.
Majid Movahed Majd; Zeinab Niknejat; Mohamadtaghi Abbasi shovazi
Abstract
Protecting and upholding the ideology of media authorities, photo can be considered a tool for communication and meaning-making. Also the social-artistic activities of photograpy paly a significant role in communication as any other media does. The representation theory excessively concerned with media ...
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Protecting and upholding the ideology of media authorities, photo can be considered a tool for communication and meaning-making. Also the social-artistic activities of photograpy paly a significant role in communication as any other media does. The representation theory excessively concerned with media analysis. It should be noted that semiotic method gives the ability to examine hidden layers of media contents such as picture. Based on The representation theory and semiotics techniques, this paper involves in analyzing photography which represented in TotallyCoolPix Website with Theme of Muharam and Ashura (the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar). The outcomes of this analysis reveal that these photos represent Islam and Muslims as “other”, and also including a kind of deviation from the true Muharram rituals among Muslims. This set of pictures can be characterized by some features such as violence, masculinity, passive role of women in religious customs, cohesiveness and collective strength, which are become prevalent in Muslim communities. What is more, traditional Shiite symbols hinged upon these features and themes in these pictures. Overall, the concepts obtained from these pictures analysis illustrate that they are brimmed with violence which pave the way for more Islam- phobia in countries in the Occident.
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.
Mohammad Rezaei; Arash Hasan pour; Simin Daneshgar
Abstract
During recent decades, many social and economic transformations that occurred in Iran behind ongoing changes in the formation, relations and identity of Iran current classes. One of the text in which these categories are represented is “A separation”. In this article we examined class and ...
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During recent decades, many social and economic transformations that occurred in Iran behind ongoing changes in the formation, relations and identity of Iran current classes. One of the text in which these categories are represented is “A separation”. In this article we examined class and class relationship, in this film (text) by taking representation approach and semiotics method.Analyzing film codes shows that in this film, two classes are represented: The middle class and the lower class. The middle class through identity aspect is modern and disposed to West but unsettled and disjointed. The lower class also represented as Underprivileged Class that having religious approach to life and is in tradition life-world. Also, film, represent new class formation of Iran societyand relation interim. In fact, filmin addition represents this duality, narrate the separation and deep and sweep social gap in different levels of Iranian society that constantly reproduced by class member with differentiation of self from others and show ideological and antagonistic aspect of class relationship.
Ebrahim Fayaz; Hossein Sarfaraz; Ali Ahmadi
Volume 4, Issue 4 , December 2012, , Pages 91-116
Abstract
Studying the Location and spatial performances as a part of human behavioris discussed in semiotics nowadays. These man-made effectsare including information and meaning that is the subject of semiotics. Cultural landscapes reflected their dominant cultures and can reveal the meaning as targeted by the ...
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Studying the Location and spatial performances as a part of human behavioris discussed in semiotics nowadays. These man-made effectsare including information and meaning that is the subject of semiotics. Cultural landscapes reflected their dominant cultures and can reveal the meaning as targeted by the creator of the effects or human. Hence, semiotic of cultural landscape is considered to be one of the ways and means of understanding meaning in human living environment. In this way, cultural landscapes are reviewed as the text and context. For discovering such texts or contexts through cultural landscapes, their signification and meaning can be employed. This research is exploring of meaning and contains of cultural landscapes by semiotics and its method. This research reveals that studying about cultural landscapes as "text" and "context" with consideration time conditions, cultural signs and symbols play important role in understanding them. Because, these effectsas tangiblephenomenonare connected with internal fact of human, through them the meaning can be discovered. Hence, this meaning discovering is obtained by semiotics.
Abdollah Givian; Zohreh Tavakoli
Abstract
Regarding representational function of media, the current dissertation intends to examine the changes in the representation of the image of the Iraqis in the Sacred Defense Cinema. Iraqies have been pictured as the "Others" during last three decades. Due to the importance and role of sacred defense and ...
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Regarding representational function of media, the current dissertation intends to examine the changes in the representation of the image of the Iraqis in the Sacred Defense Cinema. Iraqies have been pictured as the "Others" during last three decades. Due to the importance and role of sacred defense and its cinematic representations of "Self" and "Other" and thereby its contribution in the process of reconstruction of Iranian national identity this research is aimed at studying represented images of Iraqies and its changes during last three decades. To reach this objective I first examined the concept and theories of representation as stated by Richard Dyer and Stuart Hall. Then to complement Hall’s theories I referred to other thinkers in the field of identity theory, ‘self’ and ‘the other’ as stated. In the chapter on methodology I’ve benefited from a combination of the patterns presented by Kate Selbi, Ran Kallory and Rolan Bart to analyze the texts.The findings of this thesis demonstrates that in order to depict the Iraqis in the sixties verbal codes were primarily used whereas in the seventies and the eighties social and technical codes were most used respectively.In the first decade Iraqis were portrayed as those people who are imagined to be cruel, inhuman, in which the emphasis was laid on the impact of the Iraqi’s invasion. In the second decade we see Iraqi’s depicted as dumb and fat people having thick moustaches and rough voices and in the third we see this portrayal to be transformed where Iraqi’s are shown to be our Muslim brothers who have been forced to fight in the war. Having observed, examined and analyzed the films, we found out that when facing ‘the other’, i.e. the Iraqis, the metaphor of the boundary or border was used. This border is seen between ‘self’ and ‘the other’, i.e. the Iranians and the Iraqis in all the chosen movies on the Sacred Defense. In the first decade there was an objective and real boundary whereas in the second we saw a transformation stage, where boundaries between ‘self’ and ‘the other’ were loose and shaking and finally over the third decade borders got utterly symbolic.
Abdollah Giuvian; Shahram Ahmadi
Abstract
TV commercials as multifarious media texts use various contrivances of which narrative and fundamental elements of short stories can be mentioned. These texts also make use of cultural codes in order to alter audiences\' opinion and to function as influential apparatus of persuasion. So, in order to ...
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TV commercials as multifarious media texts use various contrivances of which narrative and fundamental elements of short stories can be mentioned. These texts also make use of cultural codes in order to alter audiences\' opinion and to function as influential apparatus of persuasion. So, in order to read and interpret such texts one would need to call theories and insights from diverse disciplines such as Narratology, advertising, TV and Communication studies. Based on theoretical dissimilarities, this research started with differentiating two sorts of TV commercials: those based on narrative structures and others without being developed on a narrative base. In doing so I conducted a survey among aired TV commercials during a season (Winter 2008) and due to the results I selected TV commercials developed on a narrative base to study. In terms of narrative structure there can be distinguished four main categories. Also, I divided these ads into four categories based on the ways in which these ads represented their main actors. The basic criterion in this classification was the relationship the ads established between main actors, goods, and type of preferred consumption. Using semiotics and critical discourse analysis methodology, I studied the chosen samples in dept. As the findings of my research show and you can see in this article polarization in story persons/ personalities is based on their \"consumption\" or \"their knowledge about the advertised good or service\". The ads due to their textual nature are open to different interpretations.
Art and Aestetics
Kimiya Hedayati; Ali Asgari
Abstract
The influential and powerful medium of cinema always tries to show the whole more realistically by connecting the story, character, and scene, and this issue is followed by the establishment of explicit and implicit signs in the buildings and cities' design process. This research is about finding the ...
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The influential and powerful medium of cinema always tries to show the whole more realistically by connecting the story, character, and scene, and this issue is followed by the establishment of explicit and implicit signs in the buildings and cities' design process. This research is about finding the answer of this question how would the description and position of the place as a scene for story formation, be related to the characterization and story content of the Marvel and DC movies? This research aims to measure the compatibility of common architectural indicators in buildings related to superheroes and content characterization of Marvel and DC movies. The present research, with its descriptive nature and relying on content analyzing in a qualitative-interpretive paradigm and semantic and linguistic semiotic procedure, will try to read the meanings, metaphors and how to connect the meanings in the ideas related to the design of the house and city of the superheroes of the Marvel and DC worlds. The stage designers in Marvel and DC movies try to introduce different spaces on a city scale, which shows concepts such as the generic, mental, and physical superiority of their superheroes with various manifestations of classical, hi-tech, and bionic architecture. This feature is changed the time features related to the story. But "mysterious architecture in the arrangement of hidden spaces and connections" and "sharp and clear combinations behind a simple appearance" are relatively repeated for each of the houses.
