فصلنامه مطالعات فرهنگی و ارتباطات
پیاپی 29 (زمستان 1391)

Development is one of general concepts that have been spoken highly about it. Trying to understand indigenous ways of development have been a major concern of Iranian society up to now. Despite these efforts, seems the actor and the subject has been neglected in the development. Not the present or the past history, true and complete story of Iranian economic activists is not available. The only thing is the hegemony of substantial theories that have explained non-development in different ways. Hence, this paper focuses on the Iranian economic characteristic and tries to compare and implement this feature to economic ethic narrated by Max Weber from other religions, particularly Protestant religion. The objective is to achieve the description and explanation of the reason of non- appearance of spirit of capitalism as Weber pointed. The historical period chosen for this study is Naseri’s era up to rise of Reza Khan.

This study deals with the meaning reconstruction and representation of woman in Iranian Cinema. Three well-known films selected as research setting based on purposive sampling. These are Sag Koshi, Chaharshanbe Sori and Kaffe Tranzit. The study used Representation Theory as theoretical framework and semiotic analysis for data analysis. The results show that cultural concepts and categories are defined in the basis of masculine structure. So, such concepts have eccentric and sometimes paradoxical meaning to the women. For women, concepts such as the dispensation of justice, equalization, independence, power, development and loyalty are regarded according to their value for men. Indeed, women have independent and obedient identity. In this manner, in order to progress and interpret their own life, women not only encounter structural and social barriers but also other structures of patriarchic system similar to conscience are penetrated deep into the depth of their mind and thought. The presence of men, even when they are absent, sent very powerful signal for women and remind them that they have to act based on their orders and rules.

Using Bourdieu's homology theory, the present research studies the relationship between cultural and economic capital and artistic taste in order to show how differential accessibility to various capital resources affect on youths’ preferences and distinctive aesthetics tastes. The research method is survey and the main tool for collecting data was questionnaire. Statistical population of the research is Tehran people aged 15-29 years old. A sample consisting of 400 people were selected using cluster sampling method. The results imply that both economic and cultural capital have significant impact on shaping type of youth art taste. Furthermore, through a regression analysis, it confirms that cultural capital significantly predicts types of artistic tastes and consumption. It means that the less a person benefit cultural capital, the less his cultural priority are transcendental. On the contrary, the more accessibility to cultural capital resources, through creating of distinctive habitus, makes the young people prefer consuming elite cultural products. Therefore, cultural capital shapes various types of consumption through determining distinctive habitus and tastes and intergenerational transition.

From the perspective of Cultural Studies, in popular culture, dialogue between upper-classes cultures and lower-classes cultures result semantic conflicts and struggles. In this article we have been studied Iranian-Persian rap to recognize the discourses and struggles between discourses in this music. We used LacLau and Mouffe's discourse analysis and recognized 9 discourses; we also identified moments and master signifiers in each discourse. Although rap music discourse is a marginal discourse in Iran, but in this discourse some (sub-) discourses are mainstream and others are marginalized. Analysis of results showed that the existing struggles between the discourses of Iranian-Persian rap music, is mixed of gender-based, class-based, moral-based, political-based, religious-based, traditional/modern, and more conflicts.

Exploring the cinema would provide the conditions for the possibility of understanding the various elements and factors which, in different spatial and temporal situations, become the “dominant element”. Accordingly, “Structural Approaches to Narrative Analysis” investigate the representations of the “dominant element” in those “narratives” which goes beyond the individual level; approaches that deal with the various devices and techniques which construct the text. The implementation of “Structural Analysis of Narrative” would be made possible through the theory of “formalism”, according to which the study of the form of an artworks is basically privileged over the study of its content. In this sense, the value and standing of an artwork is rooted in its form, and not in the meaning that it nevertheless seeks to convey; and thus such a study would focus, not on the aim and intentions of the author, but on investigating those devices and techniques which elevates an artwork to the state of high and/or critical art. By deploying the Proppean methodology (Morphology of Fairy Tales), this article aims to construct a model for Structural Narrative Analysis in Cinema. According to Propp, the dominant element in any narrative is in fact its “function”, understood by him as the unit of narrative analysis. He himself has redefined the Fairy Tales according to their “functions”.Given the fact that Cultural Studies is basically a critical approach, it seems reasonable to say that conducting structural approaches to narrative analysis through Cultural Studies would result in a close analysis of cinema. In order to illustrate the possibilities and significance of this approach, here we have focused on one of Masoud Kimiaee’s works.

National art is more than other forms of art associated with official power institutions, therefore, one can use discourse analysis in order to discover its semantic and ideological layers. However, the goal of the art discourse analysis is not merely the analysis of the meaning of the text (artistic work), it is rather the analysis of the circumstances within which this meaning is produced. Hence, in art discourse analysis, the institutions which produce meaning and reproduce discourse are dealt with. This departure from text to discourse producing institutions indicates the ultimate goal of art discourse analysis which is to reveal the relation between text, power, and ideology in the visual culture.In this article, using Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau’s theory, we explained the competition among identity discourses in Iran and showed how some signifiers are accentuated while some others are marginalised, and how artists create literary words and visual signifiers in poetry, painting, architecture and cinema around the central signifier.In the current study, using main concepts of Mouffe and Laclau, we dealt with Iran national identity discourses, which include: central signifier, moments, field of discursivity, and crisis in discourse.Iranian national art will be discussed in three historical periods: the first one is during the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1920 – 1941), through which a nationalistic, pre-Islam ancient-oriented discourse prevails Iranian art; the second one is during the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941 – 1978), through which an identity discourse referring to the domestic culture prevails Iranian art; and the third one is the post-revolutionary period (up to the present time) during which an Islamic discourse with anti-imperialistic, revolutionary discourse has prevailed the Iranian national art.

This article explores two questions: How do objects turn into a situation to emerge of evil? And, how can it be thought of evil life of things? The method of this paper is a case study and it is about internet and Facebook in Iran. The paper discusses three facts which are: human’s depending on objects, the concept of imitation as a social fact and the concept of evil and its emergence. Using documental analysis method the process of problematizing of internet has been studied. In conclusion, in Iran, internet has been represented in three kinds of evil identities: Firstly, A tool for spying by enemies; second, A media for social and political crisis; third, the cause of immortality.