Iranian Journal of Sociology

Abstract Focusing on the representation of "the people" in key cinematic works of the second Pahlavi period, this article investigates how the populace was represented in Iranian New Wave cinema during the 1940s and 1950s [the 1340s and 1350s SH decades]. Grounded in the dual theoretical framework of representation/reflection and shaping within the sociology of art, and employing a qualitative content analysis of fifteen landmark films by five defining directors of the Iranian New Wave, the paper examines a wide spectrum of theoretical readings regarding Iranian people's agency through these cinematic representations. Regardless of the breadth of these representations—spanning a continuum from "self-conscious and creative people" to "alienated and passive people"—the study demonstrates that the reflection of the populace in these cinematic works has been constructed primarily around two central identities of class and religion. Most films depict the people as alienated, unawakened, and passive.

Abstract Studying decoding and conducting research on it, have always been an important concern in the area of Cultural Studies. This study set out to show how the role of religion could be explained along with variables like social class, job, income, etc. At first, the 9 pm TV news program of IRIB Channel came under our studying for a week. Then, using the reading-based structural semiological methodology, we analyzed this preferred reading news program and its dominant semiotics and signs. Then, we studied the reading of the audience from this TV news program (teachers, clergymen, and students) using focus group discussion qualitative approach. Findings of this study showed that the preferred reading of the source of this program tries to attribute the origin of all the internal oppositions and the discourse of the "other" to his "plots". And also Through polarization and equalization of the other (Israel, US and the western countries) with the mythical signifiers like Satan, and devil and through equalizing the "self" with signifiers like the followers of truth and God, etc., tries to make all its ideological notions and concepts prominent and marginalize the concepts and value of the other. In the reading analysis, it was found that different audience had different degree of understanding of TV news programs based on their degree of access to other discourses: newspapers, the internet and satellite, as well as their degree of religious belief.