The protests after Iran’s Presidential Elections in June 2009 have cost the lives of an unknown number of political opponents, protesting against the regime of former and future president Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the revolutionary and militia forces. Yet one particular death seemed to be particularly horrifying; the video of a young woman being shot was circulating on the internet and soon
extensively reported on by the mass media.
In the course of events after Neda Agha-Soltan’s death, a struggle developed over her status as icon and symbol for the Green Movement, as opposition leader Mousavi’s followers were called. On the one hand, the regime in Tehran fought hard to diminish the effect which arose from this video while on the other hand Western media, politicians and artists picked up the story and reproduced it – each
with their own agenda in mind.
The object of this work is the discursive event of Neda´s death;
subsequent to this, the question how Neda’s identity is constructed and why her death became visible while bearing in mind the Western hegemonic discourse which is intersected with discourses on media, gender, politics and ethnicity.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Value of life, Death and the Individual
2.1 Theoretical Approach
2.1.1 Heidegger and Simmel on Individuality and Death
2.1.2 Freud on War and Death
2.1.3 Death-Experience in Society
2.2 The Value of life and Death – or which lives are bemoaned
2.2.1 Value of life (and Death)
2.2.2 Whose Life Counts in the Context of War and Armed Conflicts
3. ‘And so, what is it that we see?’
3.1 Iconic and Pictorial Turn
3.1.1 Photographs
3.1.2 Video Images
3.2 Media and Mass media
3.3 (In)visibility of Death in the Media
3.3.1 Violent Death in the Media
3.3.2 Images of Death in the News
3.4. The public Death: 40 seconds on YouTube
4. Framing Neda Agha-Soltan´s death
4.1 Situation in Iran
4.2 Situation in ‘the West’
5. Description of the Methodological Approach
5.1. Method
5.2 Object and Purpose of Investigation
5.3 Analytic Procedure
6. Neda Agha-Soltan - ‘Angel’, ‘Martyr’ and ‘Face’ of the Iranian Revolution
6.1 Introduction of the Object of the Analysis
6.2 Exploration of Neda’s Identity – Newspapers
6.2.1 Keyword Analysis
6.2.2 Further attributive Passages
6. 3 Exemplary Analysis of ‘In a Death Seen around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests’
6.3.1 Background
6.3.2 Layout and Build-Up of the Article
6.3.3 Indicators for Identity Subscriptions
6.3.4 Constructing Neda in the Articles
6.4. HBO-Documentary For Neda
6.4.1 Stylistic, Visuals and Audio
6.4.2 Sections and main themes
6.4.3 Main Characters
6.4.4 Symbolic and Metaphoric Instruments
6.4.5 Ideologies and Interpretative Approach
6.4.6 Constructing Neda in the Documentary
7. Conclusion and Outlook
Research Objectives and Thematic Focus
This thesis examines the discursive construction of Neda Agha-Soltan's identity in Western media following her death during the 2009 Iranian election protests. It investigates why this specific death gained such high visibility compared to others, analyzing how hegemonic Western discourses intersect with perceptions of gender, politics, and ethnicity to frame her as an iconic figure.
- The impact of Western hegemonic power structures on media framing.
- The semiotics of "iconic" and "pictorial" turns in modern news coverage.
- The role of social and digital media in the era of post-mass media.
- Comparative analysis of how Neda's identity was constructed across US, UK, and German media.
- Deconstruction of the HBO documentary "For Neda" as an ideological narrative.
Excerpt from the Book
3.4. The public Death: 40 seconds on YouTube
In June 2009, a video of a dying woman was uploaded onto YouTube. At first it only circulated on various internet platforms and social media sites like Facebook but it was soon picked up and presented by many Western TV-channels and homepages of ‘official’ news agencies (Glunz/Schneider 2010, Placke 2010, Hanusch 2010: 151). During those first days of circulation, mass media broadcasted the video and several still-images but adding to their coverage, that no one can assure neither the time when it was captured, nor the place; even the content of the video could not be verified (see Glunz/Schneider 2010: 8). In the first hours and maybe days after its first appearance, the question of authenticity was eagerly discussed. Other digital evidence which had been at first sight regarded as authentic, such as the killing of a 12 year old boy in Gaza in 2000 or the landscape of the bombing in Lebanon which was reworked with additional smoke have later on proven to be fake (Jardine et al. 2009).
However, this video, recorded with a mobile phone camera showed more: it attended the final moments of a woman’s life until her death in about 40 seconds. The blurring images of this women dying, surrounded by a crowd, screaming and crying were later plausible arguments to declare the authenticity of this short video: ‘Videos taken with mobile phones are often grainy and shaky productions, which may give them a certain appearance of authenticity over the sometimes slick footage produced by major media corporations’ (Hanusch 2010: 154).
Never-the-less, besides the firstly reluctant reactions of the mass media, the video was taken as evidence by the community of the World Wide Web. It was posted onto Facebook walls, commented and shared; her bloody face as a picture even replaced the self-displaying photographs of thousands of Facebook and Twitter users.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the case of Neda Agha-Soltan, framing it within the broader discourse of media visibility, the value of life, and the political aftermath of the 2009 Iranian elections.
2. Value of life, Death and the Individual: This section explores philosophical and sociological perspectives on death, examining how modern societies perceive mortality and why certain lives are considered more "grievable" than others.
3. ‘And so, what is it that we see?’: This chapter analyzes the role of visual culture and media technology, focusing on how images (photographs and videos) construct truth and authenticity in the era of the "iconic turn".
4. Framing Neda Agha-Soltan´s death: This section provides the contextual framework by outlining the political situation in Iran and the Western perception of the events, highlighting the role of the Green Movement.
5. Description of the Methodological Approach: This chapter explains the application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) used to examine the representation of Neda’s identity and death in 36 selected online media articles.
6. Neda Agha-Soltan - ‘Angel’, ‘Martyr’ and ‘Face’ of the Iranian Revolution: This is the main analytical section where news coverage and the HBO documentary "For Neda" are deconstructed to reveal how Western media manufactured Neda’s identity as a symbol.
7. Conclusion and Outlook: This final chapter synthesizes the research findings, confirming that Neda's visibility was not coincidental but resulted from her being constructed as a Western-compatible, secular role model.
Keywords
Neda Agha-Soltan, Western Hegemony, Discourse Analysis, Media Visibility, Iconic Turn, Green Movement, Martyrdom, Identity Construction, Digital Media, Critical Discourse Analysis, Grievable Life, Political Representation, Post-Mass Media, Documentary Analysis, Iran.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental subject of this master thesis?
The thesis investigates how the media coverage of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death following the 2009 Iranian elections served to construct her identity and why her case became a highly visible symbol in the Western world.
What are the primary thematic fields covered in this study?
Key themes include the media's influence on political perception, the semiotics of visual imagery, the intersection of gender and identity in discourse, and the concepts of "grievable lives" in a globalized, post-mass media era.
What is the central research question?
The primary research question explores how Western media hegemonically constructed Neda's identity and whether her specific status—young, beautiful, and female—made her death more visible and valuable to Western audiences compared to other victims of the same conflict.
Which scientific methodology is employed?
The author uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), specifically drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault and the application of CDA by Siegfried Jäger, to deconstruct the "modes of speaking" and ideological representations in media.
What does the main body of the work cover?
The main part of the thesis evaluates theoretical concepts of death and media, frames the geopolitical context of Iran, and conducts a comparative analysis of news articles alongside a detailed deconstruction of the HBO documentary "For Neda".
Which key concepts characterize this research?
Central concepts include the "iconic turn," "Western hegemonic discourse," "grievable lives" (referencing Judith Butler), "citizen journalism," and the "construction of the other."
How does the thesis relate Neda to the "Other"?
It argues that Western media constructed an image of the "modern, secular" Neda as a contrast to the "backward, violent" Iranian regime, thereby reinforcing Western self-identity by portraying the Orient as "the other."
Why was the HBO documentary "For Neda" specifically analyzed?
The author chose this documentary because it provides a comprehensive, high-profile piece of coverage that explicitly attempts to "find out who Neda was," offering a rich dataset of narrative and visual ideological instruments to analyze.
What is the "Neda-effect" mentioned in the text?
The "Neda-effect" refers to the perceived political and social impact generated by the viral circulation of the video of Neda’s death, which the Iranian regime attempted to counteract by branding the footage as a fake or part of a foreign conspiracy.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Nathali Basten (Autor:in), 2010, (In)Visibility of Death: Neda - Constructions of Gender and Identity in the Media, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/177878
