A Critical Analysis of Celebrity-centeredness and Yellow Dialogues in the "Dorehami" Program

The present study aimed to perform a critical analysis of celebrity-centeredness and yellow dialogues in the most watched program of IRIB in 1399 – “Dorehami”. “Celebrity-centeredness” refers to the conditions in which celebrities become the main subject matter and rumors about their community and their private lives receives exceeding attention. The term “yellow” refers to insignificant and vulgar but controversial information and news. Culture Industry was used as our theoretical foundation, and the methodology included content analysis along with critical discourse analysis. The findings show that the host celebrity talks with guest celebrities in three main sections related to the guest's career, guest's personal life and the society in general. Yellow conversations were more frequent in, but not limited to the second part. In this section, issues related to love and marriage stories, age, personal ethics, behavioral habits, personal memories, appearance type, rumors about celebrities, etc. are discussed. Factors such as broadcasting time, the host's social status, tone and body language,Jokes and entertainments,cheers and laughter of the spectators, etc., all change the rhythm of the program and make it more exciting when talking about celebrities' personal lives; therefore, yellow issues are more likely to be magnified to attract attention. Satisfying and enhancing the public desire to know more about trivial details of celebrities' private life through a popular program on the national television of the Islamic Republic of Iran leads to the highlighting of a false need that can deprive people of critical insight while making them passive and lethargic.