Representation of Social Hope in Iranian New Wave Movement Works

Authors

Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Cinematic works serve as reflections of the cultural unconscious of a given society, providing sociologists with the opportunity to examine its hopes, aspirations, and societal concerns. This manuscript utilizes qualitative content analysis to examine the manner in which social hope is portrayed in 15 Iranian New Wave Movement films. The research endeavors to investigate two fundamental inquiries: “In what manner does Iranian New Wave Cinema depict social hope?” Furthermore, “How does this portrayal intersect with the societal hope of the film's creation?” Despite extensive literature on “social hope” and the “sociology of hope,” analytical formulations are limited. This article adopts Schneider's triple articulation—encompassing “agency,” “purposefulness,” and “feasibility”—as metrics for assessing social hope.
This study employs qualitative content analysis to examine 15 films that serve as representations of the Iranian New Wave Movement, a cinematic movement that transpired in Iran from 1968 to 1978. Dariush Mehrjoei, Masoud Kimiaei, Nasser Taqvai, Bahram Bayzaei, and Amir Naderi are all noteworthy directors. A stratified sampling technique was utilized with the intention of selecting three works from each director in accordance with the research objective.
This approach guaranteed the inclusion of articles that were most congruent with the objectives of the research. In general, the majority of new wave cinematographic works emphasize the intensified social despondency through the representation of objects that are “inactive” in terms of agency index, “lacking purpose” in terms of purposefulness index and Indicators of the possibility of being “disabled” emphasize the intensified social despair.
The New Wave Movement, which rebelled against the sanguine official discourse, mirrored societal struggles during a period of political unrest by integrating Simmel's sociological theory of art and Snyder's social hope articulation. Through individual artistic expression within a collective cultural unconscious, the Movement challenges prevailing narratives, showcasing the pervasive social despair of their time with nuanced realism.

Keywords

References

Ahmad, A. (2005). In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures. London and New York: Verso Books.
Arnold, H. (1951). The social history of art (4 Vol. Set). London, United Kingdom: Routledge Publications.
Azad Aramaki, T., & Amiri, A. (2010). Investigating the Functions of Cinema in Iran (Evaluation of Cinema from 1995 to 2006 based on the Distribution of the Functions of Movies). Sociology of Art and Literature, 1(2), 99-130. https://www.sid.ir/paper/164082/fa (In Persian)
Azad Aramaki, T., & Khaliqpanah, K. (2011). Cinema on Cinema: Metacinema in Iranian Cinema after the Islamic Revolution and the Controversy over Cinema Itself. Quarterly Journal of the Iranian Association for Cultural and Communication Studies, 7(25), 71-95. https://www.sid.ir/paper/118227/fa (In Persian)
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1.
Barkhordari, P., Sirajzadeh, S. H., & Kazemipour, A. (2020). Representation of Religiosity Dimensions of Social Classes in Iranian Post-revolution Cinema. Quarterly Journal of Iranian Association for Cultural and Communication Studies, 9(4), 999-1026. https://doi.org/10.22059/jisr.2020.292282.965 (In Persian)
Barthes, R. (1967). The Death of the Author. Translated by Richard Howard. The American journal Aspen, 5–6. http://courses.washington.edu/smithint/barthes.pdf
Becker, H. S. (1982). Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Berger, P. L. (1972). Ways of seeing. London, United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
Bericat, E. (2016). The sociology of emotions: Four decades of progress. Current Sociology, 64(3), 491-513. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392115588355.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). The rules of art: Genesis and structure of the literary field. California: Stanford University Press.
Dörr-Backes, F. (1995). “The Study of Culture in Georg Simmel's Writings on Art.” Pp. 119-128 in Georg Simmel between Modernity and Postmodernity, edited by Felicitas Dörr Backes and Ludwig Nieder. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. 
Edwards, L., Rand, K. L., Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (2007). Understanding hope: A review of measurement and construct validity research. College of Education Faculty Research and Publications. 407. https://epublications.marquette.edu/edu_fac/407
Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 23-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-64452009000200001.
Frisby, D. & Featherstone, M. (1997). Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings. London: Sage Publications.
Gholam Ali, A. (2014). Modern Narrative and the Iranian New Wave Cinema. Tehran: Rasm Publication. (In Persian)
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.
Gili, G. & Mangone, E. (2023). Is a Sociology of Hope Possible? An Attempt to Recompose a Theoretical Framework and a Research Programme. The American Sociologist, 54, 7–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-022-09539-y
Greco, S. (2022). Hope in the Sociological Thoughts of some Founding Fathers. The American Sociologist, 54, 56–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-022-09555-y
Harrington, A. (2015). Introduction to Georg Simmel’s Essay ‘On Art Exhibitions’. Theory, Culture & Society, 32(1), 83-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276414531053.
Jarvie, I. C. (2000). The General Relationship between Cinema and the Sociology of Media. Translated by: A. Rawdrad. Farabi Cinema Quarterly, 10(2). https://sid.ir/paper/467428/fa (In Persian)
Jasper, J. M. (2011). Emotions and social movements: Twenty years of theory and research. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 285-303. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-081309-150015.
Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. London: Sage publications.
Kubrak, T. (2020). Impact of films: Changes in young people's attitudes after watching a movie. Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 10(5), 86. https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fbs10050086.
Mascaro, N., & Rosen, D. H. (2005). Existential meaning's role in the enhancement of hope and prevention of depressive symptoms. Journal of Personality, 73(4), 781-814. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00336.x
Meshkinfam, M., & Nghzgouyekohan, M. (2023). The Evolution of Hope and Despair in Iranian Society Based on Movies; a linguistic and Cognitive Approach. Journal of Comparative Linguistics Research, 13(25), 194-225. https://doi.org/10.22084/RJHLL.2023.27947.2274. (In Persian)
Misselhorn, C. (2015). Collective agency and cooperation in natural and artificial systems. In Catrin Misselhorn (Eds.), Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems (1st ed.). (pp: 3-25). Stuttgart: Springer Verlag.
Mohseni Ahooei, E. (2022). Shifting from individualism to genericism: personalization as a conspiracy theory. Žurnalistikos Tyrimai. 16(1), 14-38. https://doi.org/10.15388/ZT/JR.2022.1
Morse, J. M. (2015). Critical analysis of strategies for determining rigor in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Health Research, 25(9), 1212-1222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315588501
Pahlavi, M. R. (1976). Towards a Great Civilization. Tehran: Pahlavi Era Political Culture Research and Publishing Center in collaboration with Pahlavi Library. (In Persian)
Peterson, R. A. (1992). Understanding audience segmentation: From elite and mass to omnivore and univore. Poetics, 21(4), 243–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422X(92)90008-Q.
Rawdrad, A., & Farshbaf, S. (2008). Death and Society: Analysis of Bahman Farmanara's Works from the Perspective of the Sociology of Cinema. Cultural and Communication Studies Quarterly, 4(12), 20-33. https://www.sid.ir/paper/118247/fa (In Persian)
Rose, S., & Sieben, N. (2017). Hope measurement. The Oxford Handbook of Hope, 83-94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41543-021-00037-5
Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. H. (1998). The contours of positive human health. Psychological Inquiry, 9(1), 1-28. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1207/s15327965pli0901_1
Sadeghi, A., & Rudd, F. (2014). Sociological Analysis of the Process of Formation and Evolution of the Iranian New Wave Cinema (1969-1978). Journal of Sociological Studies. 6(24), 35-50. https://www.sid.ir/paper/222516/fa (In Persian)
Sassen, S. (2006). Territory, authority, rights: From medieval to global assemblages. Princeton University Press.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/30.4.907-a.
Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1998). Not all personal goals are personal: Comparing autonomous and controlled reasons for goals as predictors of effort and attainment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(5), 546-557. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167298245010
Simmel, G. (1950). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press.
Simmel, G. (2005). Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203724323
Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological inquiry, 13(4), 249-275. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1207/S15327965PLI1304_01
Snyder, C. R., Rand, K. L., & Sigmon, D. R. (1996). Hope theory: A member of the positive psychology family. In C. R. Snyder & R. E. Ingram (Eds.), Handbook of psychological change: Psychotherapy processes & practices for the 21st century (pp. 395-410). American Psychological Association.
Sternheimer, K. (2014). Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture: Why Media is not the Answer. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429495342
 

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics