A Semiotic Analysis of Images of Iranian Life Style: Studying Visual Self-Reflection of Iranian Users in Yahoo 360 Social Media

This article will analyze the mechanism of framing visual identities in Yahoo 360 social media and how it is reflected among the audience. To be clearer, we intend to use a semiotic analysis to study identity-related image-makings and how they are related to reflection of life styles in Iranian virtual society. We will use Baudrillard's concept of hyper reality and simulation to explain the way users of yahoo 360 represent themselves and their identity. Similar to Baudrillard we also consider the contemporary Iranian society to be a visual and virtual world. The problematic of this paper revolves around the question of how in visual definition of Iranian life style, the simulation has replaced representation and reality has changed into hyper reality. This is a problem than can result in creation of a lack of consistency between reality and pseudo-reality or virtual reality in personal and collective images and dreams and in how people organize their mind. Methodologically, our research falls in the category of the interpretive and semiotic methods paradigm. Some of our findings indicate that there is little connection between the photos we analyzed and their contextual reality and simulation has replaced representation of life styles in choosing and placing the photos in yahoo 360 social media. Our findings are not directed at drawing generalizations and since we selected the samples consciously, this is only a collection of case studies of photos piled up to contribute to a debate on epistemological aspects of communications today and its particular computer-assisted communication. For example, we discovered that an intimate communication with virtual social media's atmosphere, compared to other internet sites, will result in believability of these social media and will expand non-Iranian image making in everyday life in Iran. Such problem indicates the necessity of filling up the visual vacuum about Iranian life which we tried here to cover part of it.