دکتر حفیظه مهدیان

In the present era, and in Baudrillard's terms, the "era of simulation" has seen postmodern aesthetics permeate various aspects of art and media. Authenticity and meaning have been subjected to satire, with hyperreality taking center stage. As Bauman aptly notes, "Postmodernity is most distinctly marked by its 'destructive' nature; a destructiveness that mocks and erases everything." In contemporary art and media, the aesthetic sensibilities of the late modern period often emphasize deconstruction and style. This characteristic aesthetic trend can be observed in the profusion of works generated on social networks. Additionally, the medium of communication during the late modern age boasts a unique aesthetic that sets it apart from the aesthetics of the modern period, with regards to both format and essence. Instagram, being a relatively novel platform that embodies the spirit of modern simulation, has emerged as a prominent venue for the creation of visual works influenced by postmodern aesthetics. This aesthetic trend is notably characterized by its increasing representation of meaningless works, thereby rejecting the fundamental principles of modern aesthetics and replacing them with an aesthetic that prioritizes style over substance. In line with its rejection of established notions of meaning and content, the era of simulation further extends this rejection to accepted narratives about knowledge and truth. Instead of asserting definitive knowledge, this era embraces relativism and uncertainty, positioning them as the new standard for knowledge.The prevalence of postmodern aesthetics in media has rapidly expanded the culture of fame and celebrity. As adolescents, who naturally seek to be recognized and admired, flock to social media platforms, they do so without adhering to the modernist aesthetics that were previously considered desirable attributes such as gravity, cohesiveness, innovation, influence, and abstraction. In contrast, the aesthetic preferences of the current era prioritize a more lighthearted and relatable tone. Instead of adhering to established aesthetics, these adolescents find themselves immersed in superficial echo chambers, attracting an audience that shares similar views and becoming increasingly reliant on that attention. Conversely, their audience loses a proper understanding of reality, as Baudrillard suggests that the dominance of mass media images can “confuse our perception of what we want.” An important aesthetic element found on social media platforms like Instagram and others that are visually oriented, is the "individual-turned-brand," who becomes a piece of consumable media in themselves. These platforms place significant emphasis on the celebrity's representation of their self, making it clear that "views" are central to virtual representations. Within this space, whatever is "seen" more often tends to be perceived as more desirable, leading individuals to go to great lengths to become "more viewable" in order to break into the world of "brands."

Research Question (s):

In this study, we aim to delve into the elements of formal and content-based aesthetics of postmodernism through the lens of rhetorical analysis, using one of the most popular Instagram pages for teenagers as our case study.Our aim in this study is to gain a precise understanding of these types of adolescent Instagram pages that produce content in a distinctive style. Consequently, we attempt to answer the following questions: What is the difference between postmodern aesthetics and modern aesthetics, and what are the core components that characterize each aesthetic system? This study intends to delve into the intriguing relationship between postmodern aesthetics and the content creation of young micro-celebrities on Instagram. Moreover, we aim to explore the main fantasy and dream that these micro-celebrity pages seek to sell. Additionally, we shall investigate the place of quality artistic style and meaning in the content of these social media influencers.

Literature Review:

The majority of scientific research pertaining to the interplay between adolescents and social media tends to emphasize the impacts of social media on adolescents. Conversely, investigations into the world of postmodern aesthetics have largely focused on fields such as cinema, architecture, and the visual arts. Thus, no major research has yet been conducted on the themes of micro-celebrities, adolescent social media users, media aesthetics, and postmodernism, which examines the influence of postmodern aesthetics on their social media pages. For reference, some research has been carried out on "social media aesthetics" and "representations of the self in social media," as follows:Mohammadvali and Sojjudi (2014) examine the complex topic of authorship and presence within social media in their work titled "Redefining the Authorship Issue through Social Media." They explore the issue of authorship in two main areas: content and audience. The authors highlight the potential of social media to generate and appreciate novel aesthetics, bringing about a transformative shift in our understanding of authorship and aesthetics.In his work "Postmedia Aesthetics," Lev Manovich proposes a redefinition of the concept of media, replacing it with new concepts derived from computer and network culture. Manovich asserts that this redefinition is essential in order to explain the nature of postmedia aesthetics. Additionally, he outlines the key requirements that this new aesthetic system should meet: namely, it must elucidate how cultural objects organize data and structure the user's experience of data, while incorporating new concepts, metaphors, and functions from the computer and network era.In the article "The Representation of Everyday Life on the Pages of Instagram Microcelebrities," Mehrpour (2019) examines the themes present in the everyday lives of these influencers through the analysis of six prominent Instagram pages. This study reveals seven key themes: consumerism, luxury orientation, pretense, ancient rituals, creativity, norm-breaking, and creating memories.

To ensure a comprehensive understanding of the pages in question, it is essential to analyze both their content and aesthetic form. To examine the content aesthetics, the fantasy-theme method of rhetorical criticism will be applied. Additionally, to understand the aesthetic form of these pages, our attention will focus on technical codes, drawing from the principles of semiotics in video works. Rhetoric is defined as the "effective use of language for persuasion" or "the study of style and structure in writing or speech." Fantasy-theme critique, introduced by Bormann as a method of analyzing worldviews, is one of the rhetorical critique methods. In this context, the term "fantasy" does not refer to imagination or fictional stories; rather, it denotes the shared worldview found in an artist's works (Foss, 2009:98).
According to Foss (2009:101), the artifact analysis in the fantasy-theme critique method consists of a two-step process:Encoding the artifact based on character, setting, and action; these three components are the main factors in creating a fantasy.Reconstructing the rhetorical conception based on the fantasy.To analyze the postmodern aesthetics of the "pooorblack" page, we must examine both its "form" and "content." Here's how we will approach the analysis:To dissect the "content" appeal, we utilized the method of fantasy-theme critique, inspecting 60 artifacts uploaded over a ten-month duration (June 2021 to March 2022). Initially, we concentrated our analysis on the examination of the triad of character, setting, and action within each artifact.In the second stage, the primary topics of each artifact have been extracted based on the analysis conducted in the first stage. Subsequently, by segregating and organizing the themes of the artifacts, we arrive at the overarching or principal fantasies that define the artifact. Lastly, by taking into account the frequency of each theme, character, and setting, a final evaluation of the page's appeal and its fundamental fantasy is achieved.   In order to grasp the formal aesthetic of this page, its appeal has been scrutinized based on the following technical elements:

The findings indicate that six primary themes are prevalent in the examined artificats: challenges associated with parent-child, school-student, and peer relationships; self-mockery; the hyperbolization of everyday clichés; meaningless joy; representation of contradictions; and categorizations. By assessing the frequency of the fantasies, it can be deduced that the primary fantasy-theme of this page revolves around "disgruntled youth, joy in the moment." Self-mockery and accepting dissatisfaction constitute the unconsciouse reactions to disappointments.In light of the frequency of each theme, character, and situation (as described in the table below), the findings are intriguing. Evidently, "parent-child challenges" and "self-mockery" figure prominently among the frequent themes on the page. The characters of Parisa, mother, father, and school staff appear most frequently, respectively. The location of "home" emerges with the highest repetition across diverse scenarios.Evidently, the most prevalent fantasy-theme is the challenges in parent-child relationships. Notably, the characters of Parisa, mother, and father, as well as the setting of the home, are the most frequent. It is observed that a form of dissatisfaction arises due to the denial, ridicule, and neglect that adolescents face from the older generation. It further suggests that this dissatisfaction might stem from a desirable relationship with the previous generation and as an act of protest against traditional familial and social structures. Although the page "pooorblack" may not overtly advocate for a rational reaction to demonstrate the autonomy of adolescents, its appeal lies in the subtle suggestion to accept dissatisfaction and engage in self-mockery in response to difficulties. While there may not be a direct call to action, the page serves as a platform for self-expression and connection among adolescents who share similar experiences, fostering a sense of shared identity and understanding. Self-mockery indicates that the adolescent has accepted the denial and ridicule of their character, to a certain extent even ridiculing themselves. The route for fleeing from all this denial lies in "exhilaration." The act of making meaningless jokes or engaging in frivolous amusement is a temporary way to evade the realities of life and avert any prospects of reformation. In other words: "Seeing as you are misunderstood, there is no need to try; just use me and find pleasure in these fleeting moments."

The growing phenomenon of microcelebrities, micro bloggers, and even less prominent individuals who have not yet fully entered the realm of fame operate within the capitalist framework of fame and self-branding. Both consciously and unconsciously, they serve as the artistic and media extensions of the capitalist system, injecting momentary pleasure in order to control the discontent of socially unequal classes. Adorno asserts that this kind of mass media leads the audience to become indifferent to reality, instead gravitating towards entertainment that does not demand much attention. (Adorno, 1961: 309-310). These types of pages are entirely reliant on the skewed preferences of the audience living in the postmodern era. The foundation of postmodernism, characterized by living in the moment, temporary happiness, mockery of life, disregard for broader concepts, and meaninglessness, has permeated the art and culture of societies. Thus, we observe indications of this phenomenon in phenomena such as Instagram pages.In the current era of visual media, numerous adolescents enter the realm of social media with the aspiration of "being seen" and attaining online celebrity status, often producing low-quality works. Such works are not subject to the stringent form and content scrutiny of traditional media, such as television or cinema. They require minimal costs, expertise, or time to produce, and are immediately accessible to the audience without the need for approval or screening. Moreover, these creations facilitate direct feedback from the audience to the creators, devoid of any unnecessary delays. One essential approach for engaging with adolescents in the postmodern era is to appeal to national values. By recognizing and acknowledging genuine Iranian heroes who can truly compete with the ephemeral celebrities of this era, it can be a significant step towards mitigating the disillusionment of Iranian youth and motivating them towards constructive individual and communal actions.

Film festivals are a symbol of the growth of the culture and art of a society, which have been formed with the aim of achieving a discourse and cinematic form that fits the ideals of that society. Fajr Film Festival is the most important domestic festival in Iran, which, like other film festivals, plays an important role in determining the aesthetic criteria of the film and determines the direction of cinema in the coming year. Gender identity and, in other words, femininity/masculinity, is one of the most important topics that is represented every year at the Fajr Film Festival and calls the audience to rethink their gender identity.In this article, an attempt was made to analyze femininity/masculinity in the three areas of the individual, family and society in the works of the 40th Fajr Film Festival with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (theme analysis, questionnaires, focused interviews). The results show that the status of gender identity, especially masculinity, is distorted in the field of personal identity, and a small percentage of the men of the 40th festival can be attractive heroes for the audience. This situation is also repeated in family identity. Regarding the social communication between men and women in the society, in other words, the type of interaction between men and women in the society, the 40th festival has scored (-0.44) out of 20. In other words, in the social behavior of Iranian men with women, more coercion and misogyny are represented than respect and dignity

Discourse analysis is to go beyond the visible forms of language and reach social contexts and discover the mutual relationship between language and social processes. This article tries to investigate the discourse of femininity and masculinity in Killing Mad Dogs movie, and what kind of gender perspective is reproduced by the oval cinema and what is the effect and impression of the author's perspective on the cultural society of the late 60's and early 70's. For this purpose, it is tried to analyze the "textual", "intertextual" and "textural" layers of the film using the discourse analysis method. The results claim that by accepting the foundations of social feminism, Killing Mad Dogs considers femininity in opposition to masculinity and represents women under the oppression of two systems, "patriarchy" and "capitalism". In this film, truth, culture, love, morality, suffering and commitment are the peripheral signifiers of the female discourse, which are in opposition to the peripheral signifiers of the male discourse, namely deception, economy, sex, violence, power and betrayal. Finally, it must be said that the woman fails in the society that Killing Mad Dogs represents and leaves the male world and returns to the her original county.

Social media pages and channels, like other media, have a high ability to create meaning. With the occurrence of important issues in society, each of the media streams in social networks tries to construct the desired meaning, and finally, the meaning that can attract the most attention, as the dominant narrative, will prevail. "The murder of Romina Ashrafi" is one of the most important gender issues in the spring of 1999, which was tried to be narrated in a special way. In this article, by explaining the pattern of media arrangement and also using the method of content analysis, the dominant narrative in the case of Romina's murder is read. According to this analysis, the prevailing doctrine is "politicization of the gender atmosphere in the Iranian system" and according to this doctrine, the eight strategies of destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran and spreading hatred, gender discrimination and injustice in Iranian law, destroying Islam and Shiite jurisprudence, purifying Pahlavi , The patriarchal and feminist culture of Iran, the promotion of feminist thinking according to the issue, news atmosphere and emotional atmosphere in three cognitive, persuasive and psychological layers have been used in the issue of Romina's murder.

Destroying the personality of the Prophet of Islam, is one of the important goals enemies and in order to achieve their objective, they have made use of media and cinema. On the other hand, the committed media activists try to display the true image of him for people of the world. One the most serious efforts in this respect, is the movie Mohammad the Messenger of God, made by Majid Majidi. The communication system which Majidi has represented from the Messenger of God (PBUH) is very near and similar to reality. In this paper, by using John Fiske’s Semiotic Codes method, the social and ideological coding of the film have been analyzed. In this film, the human communication system of the Holy Prophet of Islam (PBUH) has been analyzed in three areas of communication: Personal, Interpersonal and Public. Conviction and trust on God in difficult arenas, is the central attribution of his personal communication. The film, in area of Interpersonal Communication of the Holy Prophet of Islam refers to concepts such as modesty or shyness, respect for women, kindness and mercy, cooperation, commitment and responsibility and countering deviated traditions. Some these attributions could be also found in his public communication system. Two factors of resistance against terror ad boycott and equality of people are prominent features of his communication approach in public arena, that have been represented in the said movie.

Animation is one of the cultural-media products that has great potential to attract audiences because of its great capabilities. In the first step, this paper attempts to explain the appeal of animation from both 'media' and 'sociological-psychological' perspectives by using a descriptive-analytical approach. From the media perspective, the theory of persuasion can well analyze how the audience is attracted to the animation, and from the sociological-psychological dimension, Horton and Wool's theory of Persona, or the "media personalities", can capture how the audience is drawn to an animation. Check. Based on these two theories, the content components of animations that are appealing to the audience are presented below. These components include "saviorism and specialism", "ordinary heroes", "saga", "being unique", "infinity" and "representing the invisible world". Finally, attractiveness is analyzed from the perspective of Islamic philosophy and the impact of all kinds of attraction on human beings and society is examined. Accordingly, there are three kinds of "sensual", "delusional" and "intellectual" attractions, together with the three "vegetable", "animal" and "intellectual" human souls, which each of the semantic worlds descends into the realm of the human mind, and They then find inter-religious identity and express themselves in the realm of culture and lifestyle.

Since the beginning of man’s creation, religion has played an important role in man's life. Being affected by society and history, film-makers have had a religious look throughout and influenced audience's religion–centredness style by making use of narrations, audio-visual techniques, subject-making and developing the characters of the story. The arrival of modern period along with the inattention to religion has caused man to go astray in his return to religion during the postmodern period. Godless spirituality and replacing real spirituality with magic are among the striking instances of deviation which characterize the cinema. Cabbala or Jewish Sufism is one of the false kinds of spirituality which have been the special concern of cinema circles. Regarding Cabbala as one of the key components of modern spirituality, the present paper seeks, through an ad hoc study of animated Im 9, to review the methods of invisible indoctrination of Cabbalist concepts used by media.

The type of the relationships between man and woman and demarcation of interactions between the opposite sexes has a decisive effect on one’s spirit and mind, family stability and progress of society. If an influential media like cinema, attempts to extend in society a particular kind of sex education contrary to religion and nature which results in lack of respect between man and woman, such attempts will have a destructive effect on the audience’s opinion and behavior, which cannot easily be compensated. The present paper, delving into Quranic verses and traditions, seeks to extract the components of the decent relationships between non-mahrams (those who are not related through marriage or those who are not allowed to marry each other). Then it tries, through a semiotic analysis of the movie, to examine the way between non-mahram man and woman are presented in the movie “About Eli”, an intellectual product of Iran’s cinema during the 80's to see whether or not it is compatible with Islamic teachings. The paper shows that the movie, using social and technical codes, presents a type of relationships between man and woman which is completely incompatible with the criteria of Islamic concept of chastity. The ideological concepts of the movie are both explicit and lack decency.

Although man and woman are regarded alike in terms of nature and essence and have no difference with regard to their reality and species there are some differences concerning their physical and mental characteristics, and so the natural and genetic differences between man and woman are undeniable. Islam accepts the idea of woman's participation in social activities but it has put some conditions taking into consideration the natural characteristics (physical, mental, etc.) and kind of relations between man and woman. The present paper seeks to make explicit the parameters and criteria adopted by Islam for woman's participation in social activities. Therefore, it tries to elaborate on the features and criteria of woman's role in this regard, using a documentary method and reviewing Quranic verses and traditions. This paper elucidates four main criteria for woman's participation in social activities; such as (woman's dress, observing Islamic injunctions, refraining from showing off and keeping control of one's eye), and each of these criteria has some components.

One of the most prominent distortions in today's world is spirituality without God and replacement of magic rather than a genuine spirituality that seriously represented and promoted by cinema. Jewish mysticism or Kabbala is a non-genuine spirituality which has been considered to the cinematic communities in recent years. Kabbala is a kind of Sufism which based on magic and one can achieve to special powers through it. This kind of mysticism with an extreme respect to magic, is violated the Law (Sharia) and believes to a permanent conflict between good and evil in the world. This article by the view that Kabbala is a key component of new age spirituality, has tried to investigate about the movie "Sorcerer's Apprentice" to analyze indirect methods for the intangible infusion of Jewish concepts by the media. Some Jewish concepts in the film "Sorcerer's Apprentice" include: shamanism, tend to evil, aversion from Law (Sharia), humanism, materialism and myths in Kabbala.