مجله جهانی رسانه - نسخه فارسی
پیاپی 17 (بهار و تابستان 1393)

Before we start it is worth noting that the role of mass media in the development of tourism industry is obvious. It is also true that in the age of information and communication, media are considered as one of the most important means of achieving societal goals. Tourism industry is one of the Industries that the media and its proper management can play a crucial role in its development. We have, therefore, set the aim of this study to be a contribution to the tourism literature, especially on how the media can promote more effective tourism. This paper will also try to provide applicable suggestions for authorities so that they can choose a medium which is ranked here to be most effective. It should also be mentioned that due to various influences that the media can have on audiences, they can cause various reactions from the audience. Therefore, the selection of appropriate media for the purpose of promoting more flourishing tourism is an important factor. And, appropriate media is defined here as those media which are more influential on their audience. Proper use of mass media such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines and the Internet, in addition to paving the way for the development of tourism growth areas, also helps growing the tourism Industry.Statement of the Research Problem: We believe not much literature exists in Iran that can offer a rank-ordered media usage in tourism industry; consequently there is confusion over what medium is more influential in promoting tourism in Iran. Here, factors that are affecting the choice of media in various fields of tourism are identified both by literature review and experts’ opinions. Then, we use these factors to show how they can be used to rank the media in various fields of tourism such as health tourism, sport tourism and educational tourism. This is all done by fuzzy VIKOR method and we think this rank-ordered media can solve the problem. To meet the objective of this research required us to study it by applying a survey method. In order to do that, those experts who were involved in tourism and knew how to connect tourism to the media were considered as the research’s units of analysis. Those experts who had a five years experience in the field or at least had a bachelor degree in tourism and/or in media studies were chosen for further studies. In order to collect data, designed a questionnaire and distributed among a sample of tourism experts. Since health tourism, sport tourism and education tourism showed to be most important areas for Iranian tourism industry, we studied those media which more active in these three types of tourism.The first step was taken to choose the factors that affected the use of media in tourism. In order to do that, we studied tourism literature and previous surveys to determine such factors. Then and after weighing these factors, the questionnaire was designed in which questions were inserted based on these factors. Then the VIKOR approach in fuzzy environment was used for ranking three media types and their involvement in health tourism, sport tourism and tourism. Here we make an attempt to show how the fuzzy VIKOR method is used to identify the factors that affect the selection of media. Also, we will indicate how the media rankings in various fields of tourism are.In order to identify the ranking of these factors, the questionnaires were distributed among experts. These people expressed their opinions in the form of fuzzy numbers, and then the normalized matrix was calculated.In the next step, the values of the positive and negative ideal solution (and) for each criterion were calculated. To calculate the values of S, R and Q we needed to calculate the weight of each factor that affected the selection of media in the areas of health tourism, sport tourism and educational tourism.Based on the fuzzy VIKOR method, we had to allocate the ranking of alternatives based on the values of Q and Q value of the item and then the best option was selected (Table. 1). Then we selected the item which had a minimum value of Q in the ranking list. It should be noted that in order to come up with a decisive ranking, the methodology of identifying such rankings require an assessment under certain conditions that has been evaluated and approved.

This paper is about how media constructs criminality and how it encodes such notion in real life’s understanding of criminality. Nowadays, there is almost a consensus on simplicity of this idea that the media merely reflect a social event. The media highlight their own reading from a social event which is according to specific cultural assumptions, and consequently media representation of youth crime is obviously not an exception in this issue. The way of representation has been always at the center of attention in cultural studies tradition. Having wide audience and a key role in reconstructing the popular culture, by producing soap operas, documentaries and broadcasting criminal news, television is one of the most prominent media in representing youth's crimes and deviations. Accordingly, the study of different aspects of Iran's media representation of youth's crimes and deviations which have been neglected in academic research is vital. To study on representation of youth's deviations, in this paper, we have concentrated on a television documentary named "Shock", which deals with social deviations in Iran's society among youths and is being broadcasted weekly, and we have tried to use semiotics to show its implications. Unlike popular perceptions, documentaries do not merely reflect social facts but similar to dramas they follow narrative patterns and reconstruct a manipulated image of social facts. Similarly, “Shock” follows the archetype of hero and anti-hero (good vs. evil) and looks for themes related to youth culture such as fashion, underground music and alternatives. The main strategy for this documentary to make conflict between “The goodies- The baddies” is symbolization. Using symbolization, “Shock” has made relations between conceptions such as fashion, underground music and alternatives and SatanismConceptual Framework: For analysis, the subject of this paper, moral panic which is related to Social construction of crime theory and labeling theory is a hard core. Social construction of the crime theory explains how interest groups, moral entrepreneur, and social movements, making claims about a particular type of social behavior. The concept of moral panic becomes developed with different approaches. using this concept, Cultural criminology as an approach derived from the tradition of cultural studies and embedding serious criticism to using simplified media coverage of crime concepts problematize interaction between media, crime and culture. Based on Cultural Criminology approach, Meaning of crime and control is constructed by representation system. The results of this research indicate that the “Shock” documentary besides stating social damages in youth's area as its primary signifier has secondary signifiers and semantic implications which have been encoded in form of social, technical and ideological codes. “Shock” uses underground music as a mediator, makes a connection between fashion and Satanism and by means of stereotyping and misrepresenting groups of youths, seeks for reproducing and inducing its own ideology among public. This program has two groups of audience; the youth who should receive the official discourse message, and those authorities who should respond to the social deviations and be more sensitive about social disorders. Criminalization based on the rule of law is in exclusive jurisdiction of legislature. However, the effects of public culture or specific subculture of youths are criminalized primarily through media, manipulated news, and daily papers, and consequently the perpetrators are called criminal or deviant. Regardless of legal considerations, in all cases, media criminalization is happened since these behaviors are called corruptive behaviors. Indeed it should be noted that the relation between media criminalization and Criminal justice system is dialectic and reciprocal one. On the one hand, the court and the police represent the ruling ideology and affect producing media criminalization discourse; on the other hand, the media has an effective role in emphasizing parts of youth culture for criminal justice system authorities. The finding of our research state that police officials as the experts of “Shock” television documentary have an important role in creating Myths for youths and at the same time they use those Myths themselves. Media stereotyping and creating myths like what was happened in “Shock” are firstly encoded in police discourse in binary forms such as “Madonna-Whore” or youths who are worthy of support and those who are not, secondly, Iran's criminal legislation reproduce such stereotypes and myths in forms of legal construction such as "Offenses against public decency and morality".

This paper aims at documenting likely differences in the use of terms like think in electronic language. To be more specific, this paper is the result of a research, conducted to shed more light on the differences between native and non-natives’ use of hedging and its different realizations in the language of email groups. The language of email groups and, more generally, the email language have been of concern to a number of linguists and psychologists for the period since the genesis of virtual space (Nazaryan & Gridchin, 2006). Besides the common linguistic features between the two languages, certain linguistic features can be said to dominate the language of e-mail groups. For instance, I can refer you to the use of certain linguistic devices such as think, feel, know and expressions such as it seem to me to reveal personal opinion (Crystal, 2006). The use of such linguistic devices which are called hedging in applied linguistics, has been one of the frequently discussed topics in written corpus, mainly in dissertations and research articles (Lewin, 2005). However, questions such as how they are used in electronic language, in general, and in the language of e-mail groups, in particular, have been neglected in the literature to be addressed. To deal with this issue, this paper analyzes the use of different hedging devices like modal verbs, epistemic verbs, epistemic nouns, adverbial phrases, adjectival phrases, and indefinite articles/ numerals/general determiners in electronic messages in one of the TEFL email groups.The corpus was built from 103 messages (totalled over 20541 words) posted on 5 of the most recent and challenging topics discussed in the group. Seventy two contributors were native speakers of English mostly from England, USA and Australia; the remaining 31 non-native speakers of English were from Korea, China, Japan and Indonesia. The data collected from the participants was subjected to both qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches. Given the highly contextual nature of hedging and the fact that a particular form can serve either a propositional or metadiscoursal function, items were coded manually rather than by computer. Quantitative approach served to identify frequency of occurrences and to produce comparable data.The quantification of hedges showed a significant difference in the overall distribution of hedges throughout the native and non-native messages. More specifically, the density of hedges per total in native corpus was found to be 29 (i.e., one hedge in 29 words), as opposed to 61 in the non-native corpus.Some of the findings indicate that the native writers are much more tentative in putting forward claims and in rejecting or confirming other's opinion, thus avoiding the so-called 'Face-Threatening Act's (Brown and Levinson, 1987). In other words, the degree of detachment from one's claims and ideas appears to be considerably higher with the native writers than with the non-native ones.The comparisons additionally indicate the differences in the frequency of certain types of hedging devices and their different realization. As to the modal verb, though it was found to be the most frequent sub-category in both sections of the corpus, differences were observed in its different realizations. Predominantly, native and non-native corpus employed modals such as can, will, may and may, can, will respectively. The modals could and might were absent in non-native messages with few occurrences in native corpus. Unlike modal verbs, the differences in the use of epistemic verbs, adjectival phrases, epistemic nouns and indefinite articles/ numerals/general determiners were rather striking. The frequency counts indicated the importance of epistemic verbs and indefinite articles/ numerals/general determiners to non-natives as they employed roughly twice as many of them as used in the native corpus. On the other hand, English participants favoured adjectival phrases and epistemic nouns. As to the percentage of the adverbial phrases, there was not a significant difference between the native and non-native corpus, though the native speakers used a wider range of them. The variations observed indicate that native and non-native participants have different orientations as to the distribution of different hedging devices throughout their postings. Different rhetorical and educational traditions or a view to preserving cultural identity when using English for international communication might explain such different orientation.Compared with other genres, notwithstanding the observation that the same linguistic devices were found to be used in the language of e-mail groups as well as other written languages, as reported in the literature, it was found that email language uses hedging devices which have been recognized to be more of an informal type. This is a further proof on the observation that the language of email groups lacks the formality of other written corpus.

This paper examines the question of how western media, especially movie industry, constructs cultural elements of Iranian society in order to promote Iranophobic sentiments. "IranoPhobia Project "is the backbone of some psychological operation plans which aims at demonizing Iran. This project has many aspects but its main goal targets Iran’s neighbors and depended on political necessities it later targets other countries around the world. The reasons behind the IranoPhobia project can be considered to be structural and non- structural reasons. Power, geographical affinity and aggressive capabilities can be considered as structural reasons why there is a need for the development of IranoPhobia. Aggressive intentions, spreading the Iranophobic sentiments and making other nations to accept such this discourse can be considered to be non-structural reasons (Shari’ati nia, 2009: 194). Recently IranoPhobia project has affected a wide range of media including cinema which certainly plays a significant role in controlling audiences. This influence can be better understood as means of suggesting certain beliefs and point of views. We believe Hollywood been following this line of plans since the 1979 Islamic revolution, to make and offer movies to their audience with such subjects as History and civilization of ancient Iran, and Iranian religion. The final objective of such movies is to challenge Iranian cultural identity. Hollywood has produced many movies in the last decade with the above mentioned subjects among which one can refer to Alexander (2004), one night with the night (2006), 300 (2007) and the stoning of Soraya M. (2008). Here we will try to study elements of the Iranian cultural identity which include religion, language, social system, cultural geography and history using content analysis as the methodology of explaining discourses, approaches and contents used in the selected movies. Statement of the Problem: The main research question here is how Iranian cultural identity elements (religion, language, social system, cultural geography and history) are represented in movies such as 300, one night with the king, and Alexander? The research secondary question is that "how the cultural history, geography, religion, language and social system elements are represented in 300, One night with the king, Alexander and the stoning of Soraya M.? "Theoretical Framework; IranoPhobia and Cultural Identity: Iranian cultural identity consists of intertwined set of ethnic, religious and linguistic elements which have historically taken formed and coexisted. Iran enjoys cultural diversity within a geographical location that has always been identified with such diversity. There have always been tribal differences but each tribe has respected Iranian identity and set their effort to maintain it. Therefore, one of the specificities of Iranian cultural identity is the diversity. Iran has experienced cultural exchanges with other cultural groups throughout its history and this is of course related to its especial geographical location and today Iran still enjoys diversity of cultural identities (Zahiri, 2000: 191). Also it should be noted that there has been variety of approaches which have tried to address elements of Iranian cultural identity. Here, we believe that five elements of language, religion, cultural history and social system need to be selected as most important elements of Iranian cultural identity so to use them for constructing a theoretical claim on how Hollywood uses them to promote IranoPhobia. We came up with these elements after we reviewed the related researches and considered the experts opinions and comments on this issue. This framework is a suitable theory that can explain why Hollywood uses these elements to promote IranoPhobia. This framework follows Edward Saiid’s approach. Edward Said introduces Orientalism as a western method for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the East (Said, 2004: 16). Said emphasizes that using terms such as oriental human as being illogical, deprived and using terms such as European people to describe them as being logical, virtuous and sophisticated constructs an unreal image that is obvious in oriental studies (Said, 2004). In fact regarding American attitudes toward Arabs, Said believes that the American attitude is full of hatred and hostility and it resembles "self and other" theory (Said, 2004). But what now is taking shape is a new "Other" which is contrary to West dominant discourse. Research We chose content analysis as the proper research methodology in order to collect the necessary data that can meet the requirements of our theoretical claims. We also used documentary research to cross check our content analysis findings. For analyzing the movies’ contents, a list was designed and applied as follows:.... Research The research results suggest that Hollywood puts a grave emphasis on Iranian kings as well as army and military issues of Iranian cultural history. The movies depict Iranian kings as tyrannical, opinionated, capricious, philander, anti- Jewish, militant, anti-knowledge and anti-science, wealth amassing, cowardly. The movies also depict Iranian army and military as savage, mugger, unreasonable and without any training. In terms of cultural geography, Hollywood depicts Iran as having a vast territory while at the same time they show that the western states are excluded from such territory. As far as religion is concerned, they show that four issues including spirituality, Islamic orders and devotees should be embedded in the movies’ content. When showing spirituality, it is indicated as having elements such as immorality, philandered, encouraging theft, greed and fraud. Islamic orders are depicted as anti-human rights, anti- female rights, inefficient in recognizing the right from wrong and believers are also depicted as ugly and uncivilized. When the language is depicted, Hollywood shows Farsi language as having affinity with Arabic. Also, Hollywood shows social system with the following fourteen issues; illegality, lack of social discipline, violence and barbarism, racism, patriarchy, slavery, violation of women's rights, class differences, poverty, authoritarian and undemocratic, power distances, lack of religious freedom, dissatisfaction with human rights, and the society illiteracy. From orientalism point of view, Hollywood movies depict Iran as “other” to the West, i.e., another that lacks Western standards. Iran is represented as being underdeveloped, prejudiced, militant, emotional, unreliable, slaveholder, undemocratic, and patriarchy in contrary to developed West which is rational, developed, democratic, and peaceful and it is assumed to be a serious threat to the world.

This paper will address the question of whether there is any tendency among Iranian virtual universities to apply research findings to contribute not only to upgrading knowledge but to make their system more effective. It should be noted that some of the essential missions of the educational institutes and universities include; providing solutions for community problems and opening new horizons to increase the citizen’s welfare. Every community, as the supporter of educational institutes are expected to do research on technical, social, cultural and industrial issues in order to provide help for decision-makers and policy-makers. In this regard, variety of theoretical efforts has been made to explain how research findings can be turned into plans and practices. This has further resulted in innovating terminology, dissemination of innovation, knowledge transmission, and knowledge and research mobilization and so on. These terms indicate that application of research findings is a progressive, interactive, manifold, structured and social context process. Here, we tackle the issue further to see what is happening in Iranian virtual universities in that regard.Problem statement: Application of research findings is a multidimensional phenomenon and requires close attention. To use the research findings in order to make decisions and put them into practice, one must trust the validity of the findings; also the research finding should be distributed among decision-makers in a reliable manner. In order to disseminate the research findings among those who would use them, there should be a reliable and comprehensive information system that can transfer the research findings to real users. After that the research findings should be defined and be translated into some operational and administrative decision-making terms so that practitioners in all institutions can use them in actual scenes. Social context and the role of various other factors in the process are also crucial. Therefore, with the emergence of information & communication technology and development of virtual universities in Iran, the question raised here is what factors affect the application of research findings in Iranian virtual universities?Theory and In order to tackle the issue, we will use the model of Levine (2013) as the base model as we believe it will provide a better framework for analyzing the question of how it is possible to apply research findings in virtual universities in Iran. The model illustrates the fact that the application of research findings in practice depends on the situation and to the society that produced cyclic process, as well as to the interaction between research findings, exchange of findings and functional status of the educational institution. Levine (2013) believes research must first be validated in terms of feasibility of its methodology, as well as the problem it tackles, plus how it applies methods, how it defines its target population, how it approaches its sample population, and how it goes about to utilize methods of data analysis and finally what conclusions it makes and whether these results are reliable and plausible. According to this model, valid research findings should be distributed through systematic exchanges of ideas through conferences, journals and publications. Levin argues that the research findings in fact involve complex social activities and if they fail to be implemented they may not be of any use any more as the social context will change and will require different research findings from the previous ones.Using Levin's model we set the aim of this study to be an identification of and ranking the factors involved in application of research findings at virtual universities in Iran. Statistical populations of this research were considered to Iranian virtual universities which included the key informants and domestic researchers of e-learning totaling about 170 individuals. In order to select the research sample, we assumed a simple random sampling method through which 118 individuals were selected to be surveyed. The content validity of research questionnaire was tested through reviews of eight expertise precise reviews. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated amounting to /087 which is an acceptable rate. In order to analyze the collected data we used T and F parametric tests and non parametric Scheffe test. the research findings revealed that there are six factors that influence the process of application of research findings in Iranian virtual universities. These factors include: addressing the critical research problems, choosing appropriate research methodology, considering an appropriate mechanism for presenting research findings, organizing the findings and using modes of distributing information, presenting the research finding in accurate and operational forms, expressing findings adaptable to the requirements of the educational context of the organization. Also we used the Friedman test to show that factors affecting the application of research findings in Iranian Virtual Universities, are at the level of 0/95 significant differences. Accordingly, the expression of findings with regard to the educational context of the organization is consistent with the highest impact. And the impact of other factors in sequential importance include: organizing the findings and using modes of distributing information, selecting appropriate mechanism for presenting research findings, presenting the research finding in accurate and operational forms and choosing appropriate research methodology. The factor of addressing the critical research problem indicated the lowest rate of importance.

Introduction and Statement of the Problem: The development of various mates choosing methods, including online dating mate selection, beyond traditionally dominant ones can be seen as a major characteristic of contemporary societies. It takes its roots in the advancement of infrastructures of communicational technology, what has caused the growing number of IT users something that is no longer class specific and various individuals from social strata have now access to it. Hence, it seems that online dating and mate selection is a response or a maybe a solution to mate choosing crisis in the uneven development of the modern world that has brought about and has increased individualized and non-face-to face social relations. However, as online-dating method has been on the rise broadly, sensitivity to it has also developed in various societies especially by official institutions. The rationale behind these concerns usually includes concerns over it being considered an unusual phenomenon. This consequently creates some socio-cultural concern, due mainly to the fact that virtual space has brought about a great opportunity for people to broaden their choices and relations beyond traditionally limited social networks. This is the case in Iran particularly since the past decade, as the use of internet began to increase. There is usually, officially and ideologically, a strong inclination in Iran towards seeing such phenomenon as online dating mate selection but also as a threat to societal norms and as a way of destroying genuine social relations and diffusing social delinquency and sexual anarchy. It is therefore something that deserves to combat against. While there is a profound pessimistic attitude in the society towards modern online dating marriage, no attempt has been made to study it in a systematic and scientific way which can to some extent support such claims or whether it is the case in Iran. This study is an attempt to fill such gap as it focuses on online dating mate selection sites in Iran. Due to the fact that this issue, in terms of its history and its comprehensiveness regarding the quantity and qualities of users, is a complex issue, this study only will focus on Toba Dating Site. Theoretical Conceptual Framework Based on the existing literature, here in this study we assumed that since various societies believe in different values, mate selection in virtual space does not necessarily follow a universal pattern. This could mean that in any individual country including Iran, changes towards modernity may mean that dominant preferences in mate selection follow modern values as opposed to traditional ones. Accordingly it can be said that in spite of society’s desire towards change and transition in mate selection orientations, individuals’ mate selection preferences could be to a great extant traditional and conservative. Methodological Considerations In order to support our claim we used survey method to examine the identity and orientation of mate choice preferences /values. Toba online dating site as the units of analysis also constitutes the research population. Due to accessibility to profiles of all users, the study was based on including all individuals of the research population, including about 84 000 users of Toba site. The data provided all information of the users’ potential preferred mate choices and we considered all them for the data analysis. Based on the research main hypothesis two concepts are important conservative and modern or none- conservative values. The former refers to traditional values and codes dominating on society over generations. In this research these values refer to those studied in the second round of National Survey on Iranian Vales and Attitudes such as belief, purity, morality, honesty, literacy, faith, loyalty, accountability, good financial state etc. In contrast, the latter refers to those values that traditional society does not tolerate development of them and attempts to resist against their diffusion. In the case of mate selection, they may refer to such examples as pre-marriage relations between two sexes, love, intellectuality, good looking, etc. Findings some of the findings indicate that, contrary to conservative notion that views online dating sites and modern tools the like, as means of threatening genuine traditional values, marriage values among Toba users are still overwhelmingly conservative meaning the users still prefer to choose their mate if they carry traditional characteristics. Nevertheless, one can see some gradual penetration of modern values along with traditional values, which have not dominated on the users’ preferences yet. For examples, they may refer to such preferences as liking to travel, enjoying leisure, being Tehrani resident, being up to date, intellectuality etc. The finding also indicate that some values have changed and simultaneously re-emphasized, such as being beautiful/good looking, having university degree. The analysis of the data also showed that there is a considerable variation regarding mate preferences between male and female users. For example, preferences of leisure and travel which are new in Iranian society are mostly emphasized by female users. On one end and as many researchers have noted, prettiness is more important for men than for women. On the other end, financial state, accountability, faith and kindness are more significant for women than for men. Contrary to other societies, loyalty is highly underscored by male than by female users, indicating the development of trustless feeling in the contemporary Iranian society. These some contradictory issues obvious here because mate selection values and preferences are dominantly conservative, but some modern values penetrated to the society making the people mistrustful. This may be a feature of a transitional society in which individuals search for open and liberal relations, while in the case of mate selection, they seek physically and intellectually modern mate. It seems this may cause a decrease in values such as honesty and loyalty.

This paper presents Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory and applies its main concepts such as Intertextuality, chronotope and multi-voiced art to analyzing specificities of TV series Shabhaye Barareh. The TV series of Shabhaye Barareh was first aired in Iran’s National Television in 2005 and very soon became one of the most viewed comedy TV programs in recent years. Of course, the series soon received a bulk of criticisms from conservatists. Based on reports of some news agencies 90% of TV viewers followed the series and 67% were satisfied with it.Problematic of the Research: Although it had its unique language and particular characteristics which represented a time in the far past, Shabhaye Barareh used a metaphorical structure so to create a very special time and space which could go along with characters and humorous space. Shabhaye Barareh is the only comedy series since the 1979 Iran’s revolution that focused on history and its conceptions and a culture with which people were living. In other words, what makes Shabhaye Barareh so outstanding is the tangible connection that it has with our age and time period although it depicts past. It seems Mehran Modiri who was the producer-director and one of the actors, had collected some pieces of history and put them together in order to challenge the viewer thought. In fact, Shabhaye Barareh had a look on the others, i.e., the Barareh people. Modiri in the series uses this “the others” to refer to present day ourselves, as if he is making some sort of autobiography. In such autobiography, Modiri as the director and producer involves all objects of the past, “the other”, and even him and is in a constant challenge with them in every single episode of the series. This very point attracted many viewers because the general public understood such point and even started to love it. The viewers connected with the show and understood the contrived ironies and felt they can identify themselves with the points made in the series. The attunement of Shabhaye Barareh with the everyday life’s social distresses, and challenging culture and criticizing defective social relations, links the viewers to the Barareh empirically, and this results in producing a discourse. Because the subject who is being narrated is not really made during the show but rather is related to audience’s age which is depicted in characters such as modern Kiyanoush, it would seem as if it covers the audience’s whole history. In spite of all limitations and producing conditions, the combination of humor, amusement and authors’ modes of thinking created a series that was successful in providing its viewers with fun and amusement.Shabhaye Barareh as a cultural product and open and multilayer text provides its viewers with various declamations because this interpretation process is not independent from the text but is a structural part of its production process. Theoretical Framework: This paper presents Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory and applies its main concepts such as Intertextuality, chronotope and multi-voiced art to analyzing specificities of TV series Shabhaye Barareh. We studied the dominant metaphorical structure of the text of ‘Shabhaye Barareh’, i.e., a TV series aired in Iran’s TV in 2005. Our objective was to show that although social context makes the producer (director) to express his intentions in a specific way, it is the discursive context of the society which determines his modes of thought. It also determines how the producer chooses the mode of narrating the series and how it arranges his narrating possibilities in a way that allows new interpretations while he respects the social framework. The discursive context of the society also contributes to the implications and discursive process that help one to analyze and interpret Mehran Modiri’s cultural act. Finally, the interpretation of this article has reached an idea based on which we can claim Modiri took Shabhaye Barareh to its exception point by gathering issues such as creating time-space of Barareh, modern thought banishment, Barareh’s anti language, and Intertextuality. By interpretation of Shabhaye Barareh one can find ideas which help the director to put his humor in an outstanding place. The first idea included banishing Kianoush to Barareh and thereby showing the exiling of open-minded rational character and its displacement. The second idea could be identified in the fact that the whole story is relying on the imaginary chronotope and an ambiguous place as Barareh. Another idea was related to the language of Barareh. And the other idea was the Intertextuality which is one of the formal components of Modiri’s works meaning that his series’ narrations are concatenate. It can be said that this study is a type of interpretational–critical research: A) it is interpretative because our intention was to interpret a cultural producer’s action and make it possible for the reader to know our interpretation of these cultural action. Accordingly, in this way we introduced the reader with some theoretical and methodological possibilities. B) It is critical because it involves in some power relations. This involvement is the causes several other issues, including: the first issue is that Modiri has engaged in power relation and every interpreter needs critical analysis to interpret his work. And the other issue concerns the fact that since the researchers represent the power relation in this interpretational action, his/her approach is critical; and his/her critical interpretation makes the reader to read the text from a critical point of view (Fazeli, 1391).

As an introduction and problem statement, we start with some critical points that caught our attention and later developed into this research paper. In general, one of the vigorous barriers in interpreting the artistic genres – commonly called contemporary – is to offer a comprehensive interpretation of “which”. For instance, a large group of artists and authors who work in “Digital Art and Computer Art” often consider these areas and their genres to be equally the same while disregarding their substantial distinctions. The other evidence of such issue is evident where the main question of the study is handled in relation to “participatory - interactive” arts. Each work of art usually requires its reader to be involved, now the question is “is the reader a participatory observer? Or it should simply be called interactive reader? In other words, it is a question whether a work of art that benefits from “spectator participation” and his/her “interactivity” can be considered the same. This is because while in some cases it is a comprehensive interpretation that is important to be taken into consideration and in some other cases it is an individual interpretation that is important be considered. The following quotation from Dominic McIver Lopes (2010, p.35) in his book titled A Philosophy of Computer Art, can be a description of the definitions as it is called “Participatory – Interactive Arts” i.e. the arts the basis of which is to participate or interact with: “Interactivity is a buzzword. Like other buzzwords, its meaning seems obvious though it’s actually hard to define, and this makes it choice material for techno babble. We hear that bank machines and websites are interactive, that multimedia equals interactivity, that Microsoft Windows offers interactive help, that interactive TV is around the corner, and that interactive courseware supports interactive learning. One writer lists watching, finding, doing, using, constructing and creating as modes of interaction; then another adds that a light switch is interactive”.The reflections of such flaw in interpretations, at the first level, take us to the main references related to these artistic genres that are in no case expresses clear distinctions between these seemingly similar categories, but rather basically different ones. And, on the second level, the artists or researchers who work with such subjects as participatory or interactive issue– often disregard such critical distinctions. Therefore, using a descriptive-interpretive method, this paper will try to offer an answer to such problem. First, several cases of misuse and sometimes inappropriate expressions of participatory – interactive arts which are evident in the main references of art works are identified and presented here. It is also indicated how the chaos in offering interpretations has prepared the ground for the artists’ misunderstandings, particularly in Iran. Second, a description and interpretation of basic elements of various genres of participatory interactive art are offered so to indicate how limiting such interpretation could be.Theory and As mentioned before we are trying to present some distinctive definitions on each artistic type by using literature review and adopting a descriptive-analytical method. We will do that by studying and analyzing the most essential elements in any artistic types that are “participation/ interaction –based” and by providing an example of each type. The entire subjects that are addressed in this research paper could be summarized in two items; first, even by referring to the major resources of the research on participation/interaction-based arts, one could not find a distinctive definitions on each field and this in turn not only causes a mix-up of different types of arts with each other, but also, misleads the researchers into confusion when studying and analyzing the art works. This becomes more serious when one observes that the researchers and artists in the countries that consume those concepts, including Iran, call their works as interactive, participatory…with no consideration of the basic differences that exists between these artistic types; the second-and most important-consequence is that, by considering the most essential characteristics of any artistic type in participation/interaction-based category, one could place those works into eight different subcategories:A) Participatory art: A work could be called participative, if: 1) the audience of the artistic work could change the display of the work; 2) he/she could perceive the meaning and perception of artistic work through the very creation of changes in display, and 3) this which induces change in work display is done without any computer-based interface. B) The cybernetic art: a work is an example of cybernetic art when, 1) its audiences are able to have an effect on the display of the work and alter it, 2) perceive the work through creation of that display, and 3) the artist allows the audience(s) to change the display through a cybernetic feedback loop. C) The relational art: a work could be called as relational art when: 1) the audiences are able to enter into it and change its display, 2) through that change in display, the audiences achieve a full understanding of the work through performing social actions and 3) this change in display is achieved through interaction of audiences with each other rather than an interaction between the audience and work. D) The satellite art; the satellite art could be considered as a type of art in which: 1) the audiences are able to determine and change the work display, 2) by emphasis on clause first, the perception of the work is entirely related to this change in display; however, 3) that particular action that causes change in display is not the interaction, it rather is an interpersonal communication among the remote audiences. E) The telepresence art: a telepresence art is a type of art that; 1) its audiences are able to change the work display via internet, 2) this change in display is created through passive interaction of audiences with the work; and 3) by considering the personal characteristics in this artistic type, full comprehension of the work should not be depended upon an interaction with other audiences. F) Telmatic art: in telematics art; 1) the audience (s) can and must change the display of the work, 2) any understanding of the work depends on the creation and changes of work display, however, 3) the audience’s action for changing the work display could not be categorized as interaction. G) Net art: net art is a type of art that: 1) its display happens through a website and the audience can change every time somebody lines to the art, 2) since the foundation of net art is based on the interactivity of audiences, their full understanding of the work depends on such interactivity, and 3) the audiences’ action to change the work display is considered a passive interaction. H) Interactive art: interactive art is a type of art in which: 1) the audience(s) are able to change the work display, 2) since the work is essentially interaction-based, full perception of the work depends on interacting with it and changing the work display and 3) the audience(s) engage in the work physically, actively and through computer-based interface.