A Semiotic Analysis of Outdoor Political Posters in Iran's Eighth Parliamentary Elections

The authors of this paper , in an attempt to indicate the relationship between making myths and election ads, have analyzed the outdoors political posters in Iran’s eighth parliamentary elections. To address the issue, at first the writers have reviewed a literature concerning Bart’s definition of myth and the role of making myths in political campaign. Then, applying Barth’s semiotic theory, the second level of meaning embedded in the candidates outdoor political posters distributed during the eighth parliamentary elections in Tehran are explored. The results indicate that all outdoor political posters contain a kind of myth making and two recognized political groups, namely reformist and right wings show no difference in this respect. Furthermore, some types of political myths, including territory, advocate, knowledge, and hero, are more used in the Iranian political ads.