The Way of Representation of Ideology in Local and International Newspapers about Iran's Nuclear Program

Ideology is a meaningful structure that involves in production, reproduction and changing unequal power relations. By means of meaning, ideology connects to discourse and language which is the device of meaning production. Ideologies are generated and transformed in actual discursive events. Press headlines are also discursive events. Based on critical discourse analysis and by using Van Leeuwen's theoretical framework (1996) and socio-semantic features of the framework like exclusion, inclusion, appraisement, association and differentiation, this study will try to analyze the way of representation of ideologies about Iran's nuclear program in a selection of national and international newspapers’ headlines during 2011-2012. By determining and comparing the frequency of the socio-semantic features during 2011- 2012, this question will be answered that how ideology is represented in national and international newspapers about Iran's nuclear program by using socio-semantic features during 2011- 2012, and whether the way of representation and the amount of these features are the same in both groups? To do this 242 headlines of two national newspapers, Keyhan and Iran, and two foreign newspapers, The Washington post and The Guardian were selected. Then the headlines were analyzed by using an analytical–descriptive method. The findings showed that both local and international newspapers use the same kind of features to reflect the news, but the amount of the features, especially in using of exclusion, and the way they are used, is different according to the newspaper's policy. In fact by utilizing specific features, the newspapers actually show the ideology they advocate. Actually having different ideologies have led to use the features in different ways.