The Life and Times of the Iranian women Ideological approach to the Women’s Representation on the Instagram

This study examines the visual messages Iranian women shares on Instagram in order to perceive how they are represented on the social network. The research applies John Berger’s Ideological approach, and considers every single picture as a report on the users’ view about their personal and social identity. After an introduction about the investigated users, and a general and brief evaluation of their posts, some selected pictures is analyzed based on the ideological approach. Moreover, in the conclusion, we try to connect the research findings to the existing discourses about the women’s role and position in the Iranian society. Based on the Research findings, some pictures indicate a part of female users’ resistance against social pressures to be a normative woman. In return, other pictures show that some users represent themselves consonant with the common social norms and values in their visual narrative about their everyday life, and consequently reproduce and reinforce the hegemonic values of the Patriarchal system they have grown up in.