Images of Women and Hegemonic Media Discourse in the 1980s Iran

Iran experienced profound sociopolitical and cultural transformations during the 1980s, which were a significant period. This study selected 15 images from 431 images of women found on the front pages of newspapers from the 1980s, employing a qualitative methodology guided by Foucault's discourse theory and drawing on the social semiotic framework of Kress and Van Leeuwen. The objective of this study was to examine the dominant discourses in the representation of women and to investigate the ways in which these images reinforced dominant ideological norms. The findings revealed that the representation of women in newspapers was not merely a reflection of dominant values; rather, it was an active process that involved the normalization of defined gender roles, the construction and consolidation of the ideal revolutionary female subject, and the management of identity tensions through the employment of specific visual mechanisms and techniques. The portrayal of women in Iranian periodicals during the 1980s served as a mechanism for the reproduction of dominant discourses, reinforcing revolutionary and Islamic values and portraying women as fervent advocates of the revolution and its core ideals. Additionally, they emphasized the supportive role of women during the Iran-Iraq War. In addition to these representations, there were depictions of women's participation in scientific and managerial disciplines, which indicate a degree of acceptance of new roles for women within the revolutionary society, albeit within the framework of Islamic values. Although the images depicted women as active participants in various domains, they restricted their roles to predefined social and cultural expectations within the Revolutionary-Islamic framework, thereby reinforcing and stabilizing these discourses.