Mendeley TY _ JOUR ID - 1404022850290 TI - Discourse Order and Preference in TV Series "Avai Baran" (with Emphasis on Issues and Harms of the Family Institution) JO - Research of deviance and social problems JA - ES LA - fa SN - 3060-821X AU - karevani abdollatif AU - kaveh mehdi AU - ghanbari mohammadreza AD - استادیار گروه علوم اجتماعی دانشگاه هرمزگان AD - دانش آموخته دکترای جامعه شناسی، دانشگاه شیراز AD - مربی گروه حقوق، واحد اصفهان، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، اصفهان، ایران Y1 - 2025 PY - 2025 VL - 15 IS - SP - 87 EP - 114 KW - Avai Baran Tv Series KW - Family KW - Discourse Analysis KW - Media Representation KW - Family Issues and Harms. DO - N2 -

Discourse Order and Preference in TV Series

"Avai Baran" (with Emphasis on Issues and

Harms of the Family Institution)

 

Abdol-latif Karevani*

Mahdi Kaveh**

Mohammadreza Ghanbari***

 

This study examined the discursive order and preference represented in the Iranian TV series "Avai Baran," focusing on family issues and harms, using Laclau and Mouffe's discourse analysis method across six stages: identifying nodal points, articulating rival discourses, detecting floating signifiers, analyzing discursive relations, examining discursive antagonism outcomes, and linking to social context. The series depicted two opposing family discourses: the "ambitious" discourse (e.g., Nader's family), characterized by generational and cultural gaps leading to emotional coldness, deviant interactions, mistrust, lack of support, and parental passivity, resulting in white-collar crimes and secondary harms like street children; and the "responsible" discourse (e.g., Morteza and Taha's family), emphasizing normative parenting, mutual trust, family orientation, social support, and religiosity to maintain social order and prevent deviance. The discursive outcome favored the responsible discourse, punishing the ambitious one through ruin and disgrace, underscoring individual ethics in social order while downplaying structural institutions like police, reflecting institutional distrust. The findings suggest the series promotes a responsibility-oriented family model, relying on individualistic and deterministic ideology, recommending future media strengthen institutional representation and trust alongside
personal responsibility for a more balanced social order portrayal.

 

Keywords: Avai Baran Tv Series, Family, Discourse Analysis, Media Representation, Family Issues and Harms.

 

Introduction

In today’s world, mass media, particularly television series, transcend entertainment to become powerful platforms for producing, reproducing, and circulating social discourses. Leveraging compelling narratives and broad audiences, these series provide fertile ground for representing and reproducing discursive concepts. The critical task is analyzing how family discourses are portrayed, including the amplification or omission of semantic elements related to family dynamics, relationships, harms, identity formation, and social order. Among such productions, "Avai Baran" stands out as a purposeful choice for discourse analysis due to its audience-centric approach, focus on family issues, presence of diverse discourses, clear discursive boundaries, symbolic conflicts, and emphasis on social realities. Notably, the series has engaged families and influenced their lived experiences. This research seeks to examine the discursive order and preferences represented in "Avai Baran," with a focus on the issues and harms of the family institution. Given the media’s role in shaping public perceptions and representing social realities, analyzing the series’ discourse can clarify how familial and social concepts are semantically directed. The central research question explores how various discourses are represented within depicted families and which discourse ultimately dominates.

 

Methodology

This study employs discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe’s framework. The unit of analysis is the series "Avai Baran," and the unit of observation is its discursive relations. The analysis was conducted in six stages: identifying central signifiers, articulating and determining rival discourses, identifying floating signifiers, analyzing discursive relationships, examining the outcomes of discursive confrontations, and linking represented discourses to the social context. The series was selected for its multiple discourses, clear discursive boundaries, explicit confrontations, engagement with family and social issues, and audience impact.

 

Findings

The findings indicate that "Avai Baran" portrays two opposing family discourses:

Ambitious Discourse (e.g., Nader’s family): The central signifier is ambition and excessive desire. This family is characterized by emotional coldness, deviant social interactions, deep mistrust, lack of social support, and parental passivity toward children’s recklessness. Relationships lack mutual understanding, influenced by generational and cultural gaps. This discourse leads to white-collar crimes (e.g., drug trafficking) and secondary social harms, such as begging and street children.

Responsible Discourse (e.g., Morteza and Taha’s family): The central signifier is responsibility at individual and social levels, articulated through family orientation, normative parenting, mutual trust, social support, and religiosity. These traits are crucial for maintaining social order and preventing deviance.

 

Discussion and Conclusion

By juxtaposing these discourses, "Avai Baran" ultimately favors the responsible discourse, presenting it as the ideal model for Iranian families. The analysis reveals two distinct family types. Nader’s family, driven by ambition, is depicted as emotionally cold, lacking positive affect, with harsh, offensive, and sometimes violent interactions. Relationships lack understanding due to generational and cultural divides, marked by emotional detachment, harmful interactions, mistrust, lack of support, and parental inaction. In contrast, Morteza and Baran’s family is defined by responsibility at both individual and social levels, prioritizing family and normative parenting, with mutual trust as a cornerstone, unlike the mistrust pervasive in Nader’s family. The discursive outcome culminates in the triumph of the responsible discourse, with the ambitious discourse punished through death, ruin, and disgrace. This preference emphasizes individual ethics in maintaining social order while marginalizing structural institutions, such as the police, portrayed passively with deep mistrust—a finding reflecting certain social attitudes. The study concludes that, while successful in highlighting the negative consequences of extreme individualism and promoting family responsibility, the series relies on a deterministic ideology, omitting the agency of macro institutions, thus presenting an incomplete view of social regulation mechanisms. Media not only reflect realities but actively shape dominant family discourses and guide societal semantic preferences. Future media productions are recommended to strengthen representations of structural institutions and promote institutional trust alongside individual responsibility for a more comprehensive and realistic portrayal of social order.

 

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* Corresponding Author: Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran.

a.karevani@hormozgan.ac.ir

** Ph.D. in Sociology, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.

mkaveh90@gmail.com

*** Lecturer, Department of Law, Isfahan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.

law.ghanbari@yahoo.com

 

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