Norman Fairclough

The Meccan Surah al-Ghāshīyah in the Qur’an, with its cohesive structure, constructs a multi-layered discourse through descriptions of the Day of Judgment, invitations to reflect on creation, and an emphasis on the Prophet’s guiding role, promoting monotheistic faith and challenging the polytheistic hegemony of Mecca. This study examines how the surah represents theological concepts such as monotheism, resurrection, human responsibility, and social concepts including justice, faithful identity, and a critique of polytheism, while confronting the power structures of the Quraysh. Utilizing Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis framework, which views language as a social practice for reproducing or transforming power relations, the study is conducted at three levels: textual, discursive process, and social practice. Findings indicate that the surah employs contrastive vocabulary, concise grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices such as antithesis, repetition, and rhetorical questions to represent the dichotomy between faith and disbelief. These tools, by reinforcing the process of othering, promote faithful identity as a legitimate and ethical alternative, undermining polytheistic hegemony. The surah also proposes a social order based on justice and spiritual equality through intertextuality and the integration of warning, argumentative, and persuasive discourses. This analysis elucidates the role of religious texts in social transformations and contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay between language and power in the historical context of Mecca.

This study aims to analyze the discourse of children's identity representation on their parents’ Instagram pages. Focusing on the concept of virtual child labor and using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis approach, the research qualitatively examines six Persian-language Instagram accounts that prominently feature children, have a high follower count, include promotional content, and display performative narratives. The findings indicate that children are portrayed as instruments for attracting attention, advertising products, and reinforcing their parents’ social status. The linguistic and visual structures of these representations are shaped by discourses such as visual consumerism, apparent agency, performative parenting, and the commodification of childhood. As a result, children’s presence in these digital spaces is less a reflection of their lived experiences and agency, and more a reproduction of dominant discourses within the digital economy. These representations highlight a new form of child labor in virtual environments, calling for serious reconsideration in media policy and legal protection of children.