Representation of Women's Substance Addiction in TV Series of the Islamic Republic of Iran: A Case Study of the Madaraneh Series

The current research aimed to investigate the ways of constructing and representing women's substance addiction in TV series of "Maderaneh".

This research was a qualitative study of Barthes's semiotic type, including hermeneutic, minimal semantic units, symbolic, action, and cultural codes, and the analysis method was based on these codes. The statistical population of this research included the "Madaraneh" series, and the sampling method was purposeful.

The results demonstrated that this series tried to depict women's substance addiction using various types of codes to introduce a form of reasons for women's entrapment as a role model. Some of the most important images presented of women's addiction in this series denote that the family is an important factor in individuals’ tendency to addiction and family problems, including divorce, play a significant role in this issue. Addiction can be seen in both wealthy and poor families, and in this series, it is shown that the substance-dependent character is a patient and has a weak will and motivation. According to the results, the personality of a substance-dependent person is faced with stigma and labels in the family and society, and addiction is a prelude to other social harms.

According to the results, the causes of addiction refer to various individual, familial, and social factors, of which the familial factor has been shown to be the most important reason. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to series with the theme of addiction, and in them, in addition to exploring the reasons for addiction and how to deal with it, its preventive strategies should also be considered.