Representation of the Ideal Society in Advertisements of the Islamic Republic of Iran Television

An attempt to describe a desirable and ideal society and ways to achieve it by the mass media is one of their missions. In addition to introducing goods and services, the mass media also illustrates the ideal of human life as an implicit implication. In this study, for the purpose of discovering an ideal society, commercial advertisements as a cultural text were analyzed based on Roland Barthes's semiotic approach. Of the commercial advertisements broadcast by the TV of the Islamic Republic of Iran in July 2016, 32 ads were selected for analysis with a purposive sampling. Based on the classification of commercial ads that were divided into eight categories, the results showed that the ideal society in communication services, in financial services, in home appliances, in food and clothing, in detergent and cleaner materials, in health and beauty products, in travel services, and in the field of cultural services is represented respectively as technocentrism, economism, consumerism, luxuriousity and diversity, self-indulgence and consumerism, consumerism and prosperity, body adornment along with consumerism and naturalism, capitalism and luxuriousity, family-centeredness and the importance of women's role within the family.