Iranian Family Representation from the Perspective of Gender and Generational Relationships in TV Commercials

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.