فصلنامه رسانه
سال بیست و هفتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 104، پاییز1395)

This paper deals with the status of satire in today’s Iranian print media. In this study, 16 distinctive satirists and caricaturists have been interviewed through in-depth questions. The troika theories of satire, the logic of dialogue, Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnival theory, and social responsibility theory shape the theoretical framework of this paper. The questions asked were within three general categories including: definition and nature of press satire, the relationship of press satire with the society and the media, and the challenges and future of print media satire. According to satirists, the most important application of press satire is its critical and journalistic role. For this reason it has been directly tied with power owners and contrary to Bakhtin’s theory, journalistic humor loses its critical function in a politically-closed atmosphere. The future of press satire is ambiguous because of the difference in the definitions provided of this concept by the society and satirists as well as undetermined red lines and emergence of social networks.

Involvement of several people in the preparation and publication of newspapers and realization of the press criminal phenomenon has resulted in the complexity of the issue of criminal responsibility (supervision, participation and collaboration) in the Iranian law. Author, journalist, managing director, license holder and chief editor are among the most important members of the press who have individual responsibilities before the press law. At parts of the law, these responsibilities address all and are inclusive of all members of the press-- as for example Chapter IV (the boundaries of the press)-- and sometimes the law directly recognizes the author responsible as mentioned in Note 3 (Additional Act approved on April 18, 2000). With respect to the damage criminal liability of the press can inflict on a major portion of the society, such responsibility has a particularly sensitive status. Nevertheless, Iran’s press law has made great progress in defining criminal responsibility and has always been criticized, too. This paper aims to explain the distinctive theories in the domain of criminal liability and review the methods of distribution of such liability with an emphasis on the managing director and author in Iran’s press law in the past and present, and also conduct a comparative study of the theories in each historical era. It is based on the assumption that Iran’s press law does not clearly follow a single theory in identifying the criminal responsibility and has faced the liability of press offenders with complexity.

The growing trend of social damages and crime is an issue that concerns public health officials and administrators not only in Iran but throughout the world. With increase in crime rates, the number of prisoners and as a result the consequences of criminals’ confinement have made social and judicial institutions look for ways to prevent and reduce the consequences of crimes. The media play a significant role in dropping the crime rate and providing a sense of security by guiding the public opinion as well as designing and presenting behavioral patterns, various kinds of attitudes and insights to the audience. This paper has studied the necessity and importance of the role of media’s social responsibility in guiding the public opinion through employing cultivation theory and the two-step flow of information and aimed to examine the role of media in how to reflect and take position towards social damages by analyzing the case of undoing the stitches on the chin of a poor child from Khomeini-shahr district.

In the world today, people are faced with the development of new communication technologies and the phenomenon of mass media becoming epidemic, a phenomenon that has managed to capture a big portion of their daily lives and become their most important communication channel with their surrounding world. This phenomenon has penetrated all the private and public areas of their lives including moral, religious, political, social and cultural domains. Media literacy is one of the most important elements that has been applied in the media and communication policy making in the recent decades by different countries for the purpose of research, analysis, training and studying media effects on different classes of the society. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between media literacy and the level of satisfaction with the news broadcast by nationwide and satellite channels of students of Islamic Azad University, East Tehran Branch. The study population includes all the 10,610 students of Azad University, East Tehran Branch, while the statistical sample involves 371 people as per the Cochran formula. To measure the research variables, a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert rating scale has been used that includes 6 questions related to satisfaction and 35 questions related to media literacy dimensions and consists of two parts of nationwide and satellite channels. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (Spearman) and linear regression test have been used to analyze the data collected from the questionnaires. The research findings indicate that media literacy has a significant and positive relationship with the satisfaction level of students of Islamic Azad University, East Tehran Branch, with the news broadcast by the nationwide and satellite channels.

Dialogue is conversation between two or more people involved in exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue. This spoken variant, due to its exchanging nature, is the most basic and of course the most important kind of human connection, as it has existed long before other media and has been used as an oral media to transfer messages among individuals in a sincere and face to face manner. This same manner continues to be used as a highly applicable method in various media, with television having a considerable share in it. Concentrating on the bases of dialogue, this research paper intends to recognize the “content” and “form” dimensions of dialogue within the framework of a television program. The existing documents and interviews with 15 experts in communication and television production fields have provided the required data for this paper. The findings show that the gravity center of “content” in the programs is a multi-dimensional context that reflects corresponding viewpoints and that its reflect on the mind of the audience brings to light other points. However, the “form” of the talk is a function of the context that must be employed more than anything else at the service of the meaning of the talk and must be synchronized with it.

This paper aims to study semiotics in advertising for children and surveys the commercials that target children as their audience. Review of the techniques applied and the values advertised in these commercials are among the goals of the present study. The samples examined in this survey are five television commercials that were aired by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) during the past five years. The research findings show that the commercials with children as their target audience have used attractions such as humor and emotions and techniques such as fantasy, rotoscoping, animation, musicals, and etc. Also, by focusing mainly on children's imagination, the advertisers tell a story-like narration by which children cannot easily realize the goals of the products’ manufacturers. In all the studied commercials, the product is introduced mainly as liberating, or compensating for frets, confusions and social and individual needs.

Individualism is a phenomenon emerged from liberalism and capitalism; a system that is created on the basis of competitive principles, in which the only concern of people is welfare through more material consumption. In cultural studies, consumption has been transformed into a cultural subject that has symbolic aspect, so that individuals do not consume for their needs, but they tend to exhibit themselves via consuming materials, making their identities in this way. On the other hand, gender prototypes of men and women in the community define people in a different way; depicting women to be weak, dependent, and sentimental people and men to be strong, independent and serious individuals. But, the stereotypes in the Sponge Bob Square Pants series have changed towards intensification of individualism and behaviors specific to men and women have replaced each other. The present study intends to review the relations between changing gender stereotypes in this animation and cultural and economic liberalism and subsequently individualism and capitalism. Representation of the stereotype changes in the series reveals the close relationship between these stereotypes and liberalistic thought. Since capitalism is one of the inseparable principles of liberalism, the resulted narcissism and consumerism are the main reasons behind reviewing gender stereotype changes in this series.

2016 is the first year of UNESCO marking 28 September as the “International Day for Universal Access to Information”. On 17 November 2015, UNESCO adopted a resolution (38 C/70) declaring 28 September of every year as International Day for Universal Access to Information.The resolution was sponsored Angola, Nigeria and Morocco. The resolution“invites all Member States, United Nations system organizations, and otherinternational and regional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to celebrate the Day”. Pursuant to the marking, by the UNESCO General Conference on 17 November 2015, of 28 September as the “International Day for Universal Access to Information”proclaimed by UNESCO Member States in November 2015.Civil society groups, in particular working The date has been celebrated as “Right to Know Day”. For the first Time , the inaugural commemoration meeting of this day was organised by the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO, in cooperation with the Bureau for Media Studies and Planning of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance of the IR of Iran.