Social Sciences

Cultural Transition Analysis: Representation of Post-Materialist and Futuristic Values ​​in Iranian Cinema of the 2010s

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Mina Hasani 1
Ehsan Aqababaee 2
Ali Ghanbari Barzian 2

1 PhD student in Sociology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22054/qjss.2026.90564.2956
Abstract
This article examines how cultural change is represented in Iranian cinema during the 2010s, employing narrative analysis, semiotic inquiry, and Ronald Inglehart’s conceptual framework of value change to investigate these transformations in their narrative, visual, and action‑based dimensions. The films were selected through purposive sampling, focusing on successful and widely viewed works of the decade. The findings suggest that the cinema of this period constructs a multilayered portrayal of a “partial value transition,” a condition in which weakened social capital, economic instability, and institutional distrust hinder the consolidation of emerging values and place social actors in an ambiguous, in‑between position. Within the narratives, characters are frequently depicted in states of urgency and reactivity, lacking effective agency, while resolutions tend to arise not from collective will but from coincidence, attrition, or external intervention. At the cinematic level, the analysis of narrative structure reveals that the contemporary Iranian protagonist has shifted from the figure of an active reformer to a more vulnerable, cautious agent seeking only minimal sense of safety and dignity. The study concludes that new Iranian cinema not only reflects a crisis of values but also serves as a cultural record of an incomplete, transitional stage of value change .

Keywords

Representation of values
Iranian cinema
narrative analysis
cultural transition
social capital
Subjects
Inglehart, R. (1977). The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics, Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and Post modernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies, Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005) Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge University Press.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular.University of Pennsylvania Press.

Home

Editorial Board

Guide for Authors

Submit Manuscript

Contact Us