خلاصة:
Virtual Colonialism (Ameli, 2011) is reflecting a new trend of colonialism
in the virtual space parallel to the physical space. According to Ameli(2007), with
the “Dual Spacization” of life,the imperial powers like the United States of America
take the advantage of the synchronization and translocality of the virtual space to
expand their realm of imperial power through the “attraction” and “persuasion”
strategies with the least costs and losses.
The present paper analyzes the user-based website “YouTube” exploiting the
critical discourse analysis method to examine the strategies through which it represents
the Muslim/Iranian women whose identity arehighlighted by Hijab. The
results indicate that the Americanization by “YouTube” is implemented in
auser-based in a pluralist context. This is while the American discourse including
the liberal democracy values and its politics ofIslamophobic and Iranophobic
images of Muslims are prevalent in the “YouTube”.
The paper depicts how the representation of Muslim woman and her hijab is
demonized through the “YouTube” result videos.Furthermore, it shows this
demonization is duplicated in the case of the Iranian Muslim women particularly
because of the formal American politics of Iranophobia and regime change in Iran.
Taking into account the high rank of “YouTube” as the third globally-viewed American
website and its discursive advantage in the virtual space, the significance of the
present study can be considerable
ملخص الجهاز:
"The present paper analyzes the user-based website "YouTube" exploiting the critical discourse analysis method to examine the strategies through which it rep- resents the Muslim/Iranian women whose identity arehighlighted by Hijab.
According to Joseph Nye, the states with the following three characteristics deserve the highest soft power to guarantee their leadership: 1) states with cultures and ideas that are more compatible with the globally accepted values and norms, 2) states which own higher numbers of communication channels to feed the International Journal of Women’s Research external world, and 3) states which are known for higher internal and international participation and performance (Nye, 2002, p.
The present study explores the website YouTube as an American virtual empire and examines how it represents the muhajaba Muslim/Iranian women.
Representation of Muslim Women’s Hijab at "YouTube" "YouTube", as an American social media website which has changed into a global reference of information and knowledge, is explored in this paper in regard tothe image it reproduces about Muslim women, particularly ones portrayed by hijab.
This image of Iranian Muslim woman is represented on YouTube under the double otherization; she is approached as a passive object and her hijab is only taken as an excuse for harsh criticism on political despotism and autocracy attributed to the Islamic Republic regardless of women’s improvements in different respects of their individual and social lives post Islamic Revolution."