هادی کشاورز

Adolescent identification in Iran is rapidly changing. Over the past decade, adolescents have been influenced by several significant factors, and their path of identification has undergone intense transformation compared to the past. The most important of these factors are the rapid advancements in communication technologies and the consequent expansion of social networks, increasing online information, and the emergence of excessive connectivity where adolescents can be constantly connected to each other online, creating pervasive interactions that directly impact identities. Alongside the consequences and lasting effects of economic, social, and political processes that have persisted from the past, this provides a broader perspective in understanding the cognition and identification of the new generation. The present study, with descriptive-analytical method, aimed to answer the central question: ‘How has the identification of the new generation taken shape?’ and ‘What are the consequences of the convergence of this new identity with the societal situation?’ The result indicates that the convergence of these stimuli (changes in communication technologies and the consequences of political, economic, and social trends) in the identification of the new generation suggests to policymakers that digital identification among adolescents can be a positive source for social change, creating social capital and promoting well-being if controlled and guided. Otherwise, it can play a major role in social unrest, anti-social behavior, and consequently conflict against tradition, religion, and the political system.

In 19th century Iran, through the publication of travelogues, the expansion of capitalism, and familiarity with the governance methods of Western countries, a system of knowledge or grand discourse emerged that represented Iran's backwardness and illness. Within this system of knowledge (episteme), various discourses aimed at remedying this illness were formed, one of the vital being the discourse of modernist nationalism which served as a counter-discourse to the "Anti-autocratic Constitutionalist" discourse and sought to justify its propositions in response to it, was extensively exploited by the Pahlavi court and managed to become the dominant discourse of the court for a long time. The present study employs the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, focusing on the question of ‘What the semantic network of modernist nationalism discourse was and what function it aimed to achieve?’ The semantic coordinates of this discourse are examined. The results indicated that the most significant signifier of the modernist nationalism discourse was "Iranian nationalism," which, by outlining a semantic network composed of various elements such as superficial and top-down modernization, centralization (establishment of a dominant state), the necessity of reviving the monarchy and kingship, secularism and opposition to Islamism, and the strengthening of militarism, aimed to consolidate the power of the Pahlavi regime by providing a solution for Iran's backwardness.