Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 American Virtual Colonialism and the Islamophobia Politics: Muslim/Iranian Women’s “Hijab” at “YouTube” 5 22 30587 EN Saeid Reza Ameli Ranani Professor, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran Zohreh Nosrat Kharazmi PhD Candidate, American Student,Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran Journal Article 2014 11 16 Virtual Colonialism (Ameli, 2011) is reflecting a new trend of colonialism in the virtual space parallel to the physical space. According to Ameli(2007), with the “Dual Spacization” of life,the imperial powers like the United States of America take the advantage of the synchronization and translocality of the virtual space to expand their realm of imperial power through the “attraction” and “persuasion” strategies with the least costs and losses. The present paper analyzes the user-based website “YouTube” exploiting the critical discourse analysis method to examine the strategies through which it represents the Muslim/Iranian women whose identity arehighlighted by Hijab. The results indicate that the Americanization by “YouTube” is implemented in auser-based in a pluralist context. This is while the American discourse including the liberal democracy values and its politics ofIslamophobic and Iranophobic images of Muslims are prevalent in the “YouTube”. The paper depicts how the representation of Muslim woman and her hijab is demonized through the “YouTube” result videos.Furthermore, it shows this demonization is duplicated in the case of the Iranian Muslim women particularly because of the formal American politics of Iranophobia and regime change in Iran. Taking into account the high rank of “YouTube” as the third globally-viewed American website and its discursive advantage in the virtual space, the significance of the present study can be considerable. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30587_217d9817a2d9096b45f326194709d5da.pdf

Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 Women’s Role in the Islamic Resistance Media in Lebanon 23 36 30588 EN Naziha Saleh PhD in Sociology Journal Article 2014 11 16 Lebanon has been considered a sample of Europe in the Middle East, and it is surprising to have an Islamic resistance against Israel in this small modern country. The Islamic Resistance was, at the beginning, portrayed as having a very different ideology from that of the neighboring countries of the Middle East. This Resistance was established on the basis of being a resistance model for the free world, especially the Palestinians; women were the main partners in the resistance especially in the media. Therefore, the resistance established three media forms: radio, television, and newspaper, to work simultaneously with military resistance operations. This could not have been achieved without the Lebanese women’s support. Women in resistance media had a role of sustaining the resistance when no one could help. In this article the focus is on this role after it has being found out that there is not much study done about it, so we chose this topic to highlight the importance of women in this field. In a country like Lebanon, the appearance of veiled women on TV, was an opportunity to show that the veil is not an obstacle to be active. The article goes back to the history of Lebanon and has spoken about the many resistance movements experienced in the Arab world showing the role of women in these movements, with details about the role of women in the Lebanese resistance and its media. Women’s participation in the Islamic resistance was an important step forward in facing the Israeli aggressions against Lebanon to reach victory. Developing a specialized media for the resistance was an important step forward; first, in facing the Israeli as well as international media in which women were the role models, and second, in showing the people of the region with different ideologies the right side of the resistance, therefore winning acceptance and respect for Islam and for Hijab. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30588_4d206b4c1ed045aba0df7da77c6e8f81.pdf

Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 An Analytical Approach to Female Genital Mutilation in West Africa 37 56 30589 EN Bahram Arab Ahmadi Faculty of World Studies, UT Journal Article 2014 11 16 Female genital mutilation in different parts of the African continent is considered as one of the vast territory’s social problems. This social problem which is accounted as an old tradition in different countries of the African continent has had so many unpleasant physical and mental effects on urban and rural African women during recent centuries. Throughout recent decades, considerable efforts have been made by United Nations and its dependent organizations and private institutes in order to stop or reduce the young girls circumcision rate in African continent; however, most of the indigenous population insist on this wrong tradition and proclaim that this tradition is a part of their old traditions remaining from their ancestors and its safeguard is quite important for them. In this article, the way this old tradition is conducted and the reasons underlying the action have been studied. Furthermore, the activities taking place by organizations related to United Nations and African politicians in order to confront female genital mutilation in different countries of Western Africa and their reflection in urban and rural regions have been studied through existing documents and witnesses. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30589_92ccff08cb10acd5cec215096c3b672f.pdf

Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 The Representation of Muslim Women in Non-Islamic Media: A Critical Discourse Analysis Study on Guardian 57 78 30590 EN Sajad Kabgani MA in TEFL, Shiraz University, Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics Journal Article 2014 11 16 Providing analytical and social tools, critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA) can be used to unravel the hidden ideologiesas well as biases in the webs of discursive practices involved in texts. In this paper, the van Leeuwen’s (1996) CDA framework is used to analyze an article from a British broadsheet newspaper, the Guardian. To have a more detailed analysis, eleven elements are chosen from the comprehensive framework of van Leeuwen. The focus of the study is on the representation of Muslim women in non-Islamic media, and the reason for which this British newspaper is used is that usually European countries have been accused of undemocratic behavior towards other ethnics and nationalities, and the reflection of this behavior is more observable in their media. Besides Muslim women, the representation of three other social actors has been analyzed so that a more comprehensive assessment can be achieved. The findings of this study indicate that Muslim women are depicted as active actors of Muslim community, remarkably determined in their beliefs, and as independent individuals who are in search of the resurrection of women’s identity. Although the Guardian author’s total depiction of Muslim women is a positive one, she finally concludes that the prevalence of the lack of critical thinking among them is the clearest drawback of all Muslim women. This last statement shows that although western media by the means of strategic tools try to depict minorities positively, in adopting such strategies they are not completely neutral. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30590_db53e77c6544ebf3ff43df9bea58efe6.pdf

Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Setting the American Dream’s Homeownerships Standard of Living and its Costs 79 94 30591 EN Heshmat Sadat Moinifar Prof, FWS,UT Rayeheh Ali Tavoli MA Student, American Studies Journal Article 2014 11 16 This article discusses how the Extreme Makeover: HomeEditionUS television reality program, which focuses on rebuilding houses for those in need, sets unrealistic boundaries for the American Dream’s standard of living of low-income homeowners in the United States. Passing through economic hardship in the past several years, it is important to study how this program can meet the real expectations of the deserved families and viewers in a way that it doesnot lead to more economic pressure for the selected family who is having their house reconstructed. Based on Gerbner’s Cultivation theory, the media shapes the peoples’ reality and view on the world around them and in this case, it shapes the expectations of an American dream home. This article analyzes how homeownership has become an American Dream and how the low-income families participating in Extreme Makeover: HomeEdition had struggled to become homeowners. It will do so by looking at five examples of families who have faced difficulty in maintaining the lavish homes that have been rebuilt for them by Extreme Makeover reality program team, with the use of a multidisciplinary frame and discourse analysis methodology. Hencit will describe how this program has set boundaries and raised expectations for the target families and viewers according to the Cultivation theory. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30591_c75ebb8a8809be83daede1d1404dc0ad.pdf

Center for Women's Studies and Research, University of Tehran International Journal of Women's Research 2322-3901 2 1 2013 05 01 Representation of Latinos in Hollywood: Masculinity in Iñárritu’s Films 59 110 30592 EN Mohammad Ali Mousavi Prof., American Studies Samar Sadeghi MA Student, American Studies Journal Article 2014 11 16 This paper studies the image of Latinos in the United States of America through the Hollywood films production by the well-known Mexican director,Alejandro Gonz?lez I??rritu. Using content analysis of the Latinos characters in the three films directed by him and in collaboration with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, the present paper examines the masculinity frame to see whether the Latinos are portrayed positively or negatively in Hollywood movies. Semiotics in films and the Character theory are used as the theoretical framework. The reason for choosing this director is to control the research for the racializationthat might exist if we pick a non-Latino director. The hypothesis is that the portrayal of the main characters is a violent masculinity and a negative one. Regardless of the intentional or unintentional reasons behind it, the effect of such portrayal on the overall picture of Latinos is a negative one in the sense that according to the representation theory, using Goffman Character and Christian Metz’s Semiotics theories, people tend to accept something that is repeated enough for them as the reality and therefore act upon it. https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_30592_3cde4149ec82729c4ca6bae72ed8c181.pdf