Honor killings and semantic implications of a normal subject in the family institution: Newspapers’ narrative about the murder of Romina Ashrafi

The paper aims to identify the semantic implication of moral and normal subjects, and mechanisms of their reconstruction in the family institution. For this purpose, here Stuart Hall’s representation approach and Jeffrey Alexander's strong research program have been applied to reach the conclusion on the main research questions: What is the semantic implication of moral and normal subjects in the family? And what is the mechanism for reconstructing a moral subject in the family? 65 notes and editorials published in Shargh, Etemad-e Melli and Hamshahri newspapers in one section as well as Javan and Kayhan were selected and reviewed in the course of the study. Newspapers in the other section, representing the murder of Romina Ashrafi, were examined using a narrative research framework and thematic analysis. Findings reveal that in both sections, similar components of individual ethics in the family institution are represented as a normal ideal of a unified world in the network of obedience and submission.