Twelfth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

CNN is one of the world’s leading news agencies with a global audience. The news agency regularly publishes news related to Iran on its website in covering news around the world. Most of the news is accompanied by news photos that contain symbolic implications for managing the image of Iran in the mind of the audience. Therefore, it can be the subject of research studies that have a critical attitude towards such images, a topic that has yet not been studied through research form. The present study analyzes CNN news photos related to Iran using the semiotic method, adopting John Fisk’s three-level cryptographic analysis approach. The results of the analysis show that CNN, like other mainstream news agencies, uses the capabilities of technical codes such as camera angle, view size, color, light, etc. to have a greater impact on the audience. In terms of content, however, the nature of the influence is established on the two axes of ‘otherness-producing elements’ and ‘creating separation and contrast between the government and the people’. The result of the approach is the construction of an ‘other’ out of Iran that is violent, inefficient, and anti-people. This leads to justification of US interference in the Middle East and Iran for a global audience.