Semio-mythological analysis of photojournalism & newspaper headlines Case study: Iranian presidential election of 14 June 2013

This article analyzes photojournalism & newspaper headlines in Iranian presidential election of 14 June 2013 by means of a semio-mythological methodology. 39 photos & the related headlines -published in Iranian national press- are studied as unit of analysis. All visual & textual data is first described and then analyzed by Barthes’s 5 semiological codes with use of some structural tables; these data is finally interpreted by applying a new version of Barthes method, means Moriarty & others’ work as validation analysis pattern. The final result reveals that: 1- the most repetitive visual code is the image of “president Rouhani”, winner of election. This visual code (photo) paradoxically represents the textual code of people which has the most textual referent code (means word of “people”). 2- Although this signifier (signifié) - means Iranian people- are all absent in visual codes, they are mostly represented as generated textual codes (Mellat). Besides, 3-“people” as a semiotic code retain one other paradoxical signified (signifiant) as well: “the other” who is ubiquitously “the image of the elites”. 4-Furthermore, “Women” are totally absent in both visual & textual codes in both front page photos and texts.5-Finally, semio-mythological analysis explicates that “people” for Iranian press has no meaning than men.