فصلنامه تحقیقات فرهنگی ایران
سال پانزدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 58، تابستان 1401)

With a comparative discourse analysis of three important museums, this article tries to show the relationship between the institution of power and the institution of museum in Iran. The research question is whether or not Iranian museums on different historical topics and periods receive equal attention from the power institution, today. The method of discourse analysis is based on Foucault’s concept of power as well as a description of Gillian Rose on this theory. This research is about power apparatuses and institutional technologies in three important museums i.e., The Museum of Ancient Iran, The Islamic Museum, and The National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense Museum. For that matter, a second type of the discourse analysis has been used that focuses more on institutions, their related procedures, and how content is produced. Findings from field surveys of museums indicate significant differences in the apparatus and institutional technologies being used there. The results show that The National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense Museum articulates the discourse of its trustees such as anti-arrogance, resistance, and progress in comparison with others that are equipped with the most diverse, advanced, and attractive designs, space, displaying technologies, and facilities. The Islamic Museum, by the way has its own importance for authorities because of its post-Islamic Iran cultural manifestations compared to The Museum of Ancient Iran.

The main view of thinkers, with respect to the impact of cyberspace on religion, is that its continuous use would help lead to “secularization” of individuals and society. However, it seems that this process, under the influence of some interfering factors, has overturned and, in some cases, even strengthened the religious outlook of some users of the virtual space, a process which we call “desecularization”. In this article, the attempt is being made to examine what are the most critical factors that enhance desecularization in social networks, and how desecularized users resist those secularizing effects? This research has been done using a qualitative approach and based on grounded theory as well as the theoretical sampling method. The statistical population was undergraduate students from universities of Tehran who were religious and each of them having about a thousand followers on Instagram. Finally, 27 of them were interviewed through structured questionnaire. MAXQDA20 software was used to encode and analyze the data which were deduced in three stages of sub-and-main concepts. The 10 categories that were selected include: pre-network context of the individual; scientific protective armor; transnational knowledge; activism power of users; religious lifestyle; reminding and meditating about life's priorities for users; maturity in interactions; internal and external care; intellectual patience and to build a social network with indigenous characteristics. All these aforementioned characteristics are gathered under one title called “conscious struggle”.

In recent years, especially with the outbreak of the Coronavirus, social media has become a platform for interactions with user-generated contents among online communities. Despite undeniable advantages of social media in individual and social domains, its applications have also confronted human society with numerous ethical issues. Since these issues have been less focused by researchers, the present study intends to identify and prioritize ethical challenges being posed by social media. As such, a sequential mixed research method has been applied to reach the desired outcome. At first, after reviewing the existing literature on technological ethics in general, and social media ethics in particular, ethical challenges is defined and classified. Thereafter, a survey method is used to assess and localize the challenges identified by experts. The statistical population in both stages is professors and experts of information technology and social media, who were selected by the purposeful (judgmental) sampling method. The results indicate 7 main dimensions and 42 indicators in social media ethics such as: privacy/confidentiality, psychological/social effects, cyber bullying, accuracy (information content), intellectual property, and freedom of expression issues. The findings can provide policymakers in the field of technology with a comprehensive insight into the challenges of using social media and its importance.

The perception of residents of a neighborhood about their life there may indicate "restlessness" and "tension" or "peacefulness" and "calmness". The starting point of the present study is the lived experience of one of the authors and the exploratory observation of two others in the Daulatabad neighborhood of the city of Kermanshah who found that the general feeling of the residents there is related to "place" and their sense of belonging. As such, the article intends to search as what makes the residents to feel so. While searching for the main question, the accuracy of more or less intuitive statement was also tested. But the emphasis had been to find elements that make life in Daulatabad more or less acceptable to its inhabitants. The theoretical basis is a narrative view and specifically the micro concept of Boje’s narrative. Through interviews, observation and of course data of the lived experience, two important elements in the life of neighborhood residents were highlighted and the two meanings that showed the acceptability of the neighborhood for its residents are: Local mosque and bazaar, symbols of religion and the world. But what has made these two bodies important in creating a sense of belonging to the neighborhood is how they are interwoven in daily life and of course, the placement of dimensions of these symbols in the collective memory. The present article, in fact, describes and analyzes these facts.

Today, living in the age of media and information, human beings are exposed to all kinds of seemingly real news and information, the rumored nature of which is hidden from the view. In the face of such unreliable news, people often republish it in virtual and real spaces, which can lead to a significant security, economic and social damage. Therefore, the present study is conducted with the aim of more deeply identifying users' strategies in the face of news and especially rumors in the virtual space and the process of reducing rumor-making and rumor-mongering with a qualitative approach and Strauss and Corbin's field theory method. Based on theoretical and purposive sampling, 24 young Yazdians active in cyberspace, including 12 men and 12 women, participated in the research and their narratives were analyzed. The data collection process was performed simultaneously with their analysis in three stages of open, axial and selective coding. Findings show the central phenomenon of dualism of trust in news sources, whether national, non-national or virtual. News were tracked from credible sources whereas credible and rumor contents were measured accordingly. Eventually, due to the timeliness of rumors and media literacy training, there was high probability of discrediting. The mentioned strategies, such as the temporary reduction of rumor mongers' visits were found to silence rumors.

Youths are valuable assets of the society who would determine the future of that society. As a matter of fact, identifying different dimensions and factors affecting young people as well as finding solution to their problems are of great importance. The aim of this study, as the title indicates, is to sociologically analyze the effect of socio-cultural factors affective on social isolation with a case study of the city of Bagh-e Bahadoran. The research is descriptive and survey-based; with the statistical population being youths aged 17-25 years from that city. The statistical population included 2000 people, 322 of them were selected by the proportional sampling method. The theoretic framework of this research was based on viewpoints of different thinkers such as Durkheim, Hari Alper, Merton, Simmel, Almond, Paul, Inglehart, Gwen, Giddens, and Marcuse. Findings show that there is a direct relationship between religiosity, social participation and social isolation but they are not meaningful and thus the hypothesis is rejected. With respect to socio-economic base and social isolation, there is an inverse and meaningful relationship. A direct and significant relationship is also shown between social media viewing and social isolation. Also, there is a significant relationship between socio-economic base and the ratio of social media viewing with social isolation. The regression analysis results show that two independent and dependent variables are attached to a good model and are able to explain social isolation. Similarly, they found to provide a suitable fit in the modeling of media structural equations and socio-economic base. As a result, socio-cultural factors explain social isolation.