Analysis of a communication ritual to investigate the semantics of women's clothing in today's Iranian society

Dissertation in Master's Degree in Advertising and Cultural Communication

Abstract

The following research has been written so that the reader can get a relatively comprehensive and complete knowledge of the factors affecting the issue of women's clothing in today's Iranian society. This research has been carried out with the premise that the clothing of Iranian women is largely influenced by the communication rituals that surround women.

The meaning of ritual in this research is ritual in the capacity of how and description, so an attempt has been made to examine the behavior of women in the matter of the clothing they choose for themselves from a descriptive point of view. Let's analyze a communication phenomenon.

In simpler terms, this research intends to examine the behavior of women in this matter from the perspective of what communication processes women are placed in due to their general and specific characteristics and how they make decisions and behave according to these processes.

The researcher in this research has tried to establish an intimate and close relationship with the audience by using the ethnographic method and be able to identify the real factors that organize their behavior in the field of coverage. What is most important in this matter is understanding how the audience understands the phenomena.

In this way, the researcher has used the methods of participatory observation, in-depth interviews and the use of informants and has answered the research questions in the form of describing and analyzing the behavior of women in the issue of covering.

What has been obtained as a result of this research is the explanation and analysis of political, social, individual and other factors that influence the behavior of women in the issue of covering.

In this research, women's views on the issues and matters that affect their clothing have been mentioned, and how these factors affect different groups of women has been investigated.

Problem outline

It seems that the issue of clothing in Iranian society is a significant issue for those interested in the culture and history of Iranian society, considering its history and civilization. The attention of researchers of historical sociology, historiography, tourists and orientalists to the cover of the studied society shows the importance and seriousness of the issue of cover. In fact, the clothing of a society is the best symbol to understand the culture of a society. A symbol that displays religious values ??and the influence of society's values ??in people's actions.

That is why in most works of ethnography, in addition to expressing economic behavior, livelihood, food, marriage, housing, etc. The coverage of the people of that society is of interest. Women's clothing is of double importance due to the fact that the behavior of women in a society is somewhat influenced by the opinions of men's society.

Looking at the historical course of the issue of clothing in Iranian society and the reflection of this issue in historiography, we will realize the necessity of a semantic analysis of women's clothing in Iranian society for a correct understanding of the behavioral realities of a society. In order to get a correct understanding of the realities of today's society and to record how and why Iranian women dress, we must analyze the dress of Iranian women. If with the premise that Islamic clothing is desirable according to Sharia, custom and law, and not veiling is according to the same cases of behavior bias, then we must reach the innermost layer of clothing, i.e. the communication factors that lead to the choice of clothing in people, so that we can discover and expand the effective factors in the desired clothing.

However, the issue of clothing and its limits and gaps, individual freedom or lack of freedom in the type of clothing, social or individuality of clothing, especially the issue of bad clothing, especially the clothing of women in today's Iranian society is a point of disagreement. Many scholars, politicians, and opinion leaders have become such that it has sometimes become a point of contention among politicians. 

Therefore, investigating the semantics of women's clothing as clothing selectors can be considered by researchers. This issue has been investigated in other sciences and disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and Islamic sciences and education, and it seems that the investigation of this social behavior as a communication category has been neglected to some extent. What is intended in this research is to express the meaning of covering women as a communication process and behavior in society..

On the other hand, in order to find a solution and treatment for the problem of bad hijab (according to Islamic principles, hijab is not relative but absolute, so mentioning bad hijab is due to its generalization in society) in today's Iranian society, at the beginning, it should be described and analyzed from the point of view of the behaviorist. Bad hijab is essentially a social behavior because if it does not appear in society, the issue of bad hijab has no meaning. Bad hijab is in the position of confronting the person or people in the society, which is the subject of discussion. Apart from being sociable, promiscuity is also a communication behavior. In fact, the person wearing hijab acts as a medium and is sending a message to the audience, that is, the members of the society, and the analysis of this message is beyond the scope of this introduction.

The purpose of this research is to explain and describe how to send a message in the form of a communication behavior influenced by ritual and tries to express the point that veiling as a communication behavior is more influenced by the communication ritual of the society's macro culture or subculture and or concept that the person is a member of and is influenced by.

Ain refers to the fact that a person in society is surrounded by effective and influential communication and its social life depends on maintaining these communication. In fact, these connections defined a kind of dos and don'ts for him, and the person affected by these patterns behaves and thinks, and by using the tools provided by these connections, he identifies the surrounding world and its phenomena and thinks about them. What is the cause of this being more beautiful? caused by a physiological phenomenon? Does this mean that when a person sees this color, physiological reactions occur in his body and mind? Or is this thinking caused by a kind of ritual that a person received in relation to his society, i.e. other men and women? This is a beauty ritual that the society has subtly communicated that in this ritual, golden hair is a characteristic of beauty. The presupposition can be that the social pressure caused by not accepting the religion to which a person belongs usually prevents the action outside of that religion. A topic that is also considered the basis of the formation of Neol Neuman's theory of the spiral of silence. But in the end, it is here that the researcher must reach the description of the reason for this mental impression by obtaining the communication rituals under which the person acts.

1-2- The importance and necessity of the research

If we take a short look at family pictures or movies made from the not-so-distant years, for example, the early 1970s, we can clearly see a significant and very noticeable change in the type of clothing of the people in those photos, especially Let's see ladies. Even if we make a simple comparison of the type of coverage of actors in films and series ten years ago and now, we will notice a very profound change. Of course, this change is clearly visible outside the borders of Iran. If we consider the series and films made in different times to be somewhat representative of the social situation of the same day, we will see a visible change in the coverage of women in the films of a decade ago and the films of the world cinema day. These developments, which have progressed rapidly with the goal of nudity more and more, show a rapid change in the pattern of women's clothing.

As mentioned above, this change in clothing in Iran after the imposed war is also highly palpable. So that maybe if we imagined the image of some women's clothing in today's society ten years ago, it would not be acceptable for anyone. This change in the covering pattern can be caused by a change in people's communication relationships with outsiders, or it may have mental or functional factors. This research actually seeks to find the reasons for these changes. On the other hand, preventing the change of the covering pattern towards non-native patterns and guiding and maintaining the pattern towards the native and Islamic patterns is one of the goals for which an analysis of the state of covering in today's society must be achieved.

Combating the hijab and Islamic covering in the political era before the Islamic Revolution was considered as a serious approach of the government, and at some point in time, paying the price of coercive measures in this field is justified for the rulers of the time. But over time, these coercive encounters gave way to a soft and so-called cultural uprising; And the state of clothing in some Iranian women, who were mostly present in the wealthy classes of big cities, went in a direction that had no sign of a country with the official religion of Islam.