The Realization of the Binary Opposition of Cosmos/Chaos in the Visual Properties of "Iran" Newspaper during the Nasserid Period

Cosmos and Chaos are among the most significant dialectical binary oppositions in Lotman's semiotic theory, revealing a systematic relationship between signs and either culture or non-culture. The historical background of this opposition traces back to ancient Greek thought, where it was believed that the gods transformed chaos/disorder into order and beauty. Plato attributed this concept to the Demiurge, who, in the contemplation of the realm of ideals, organized the chaotic and disordered material world. In Lotman's Cultural Semiotics, the concept of order is utilized to elucidate the established characteristics of culture as collective memory raising awareness, while, chaos emerges that the system experiences discontinuity. This state may be rectified by referring to the process where a structured memory allows the elements that caused chaos to be integrated and understood within the system. It therefore provides the emergence of new concepts within the culture.

The publication of the first Persian newspapers during the Qajar period, resulting from intercultural interactions, initiated a new phase of cultural transformations in Iran. The encounter with an unfamiliar cultural environment, represented in newspapers, is recognized as a source of chaos within the Iranian Semiosphere. Consequently, it is supposed that the visual characteristics of newspapers from this era, regarded as a semiotic space, were influenced by this chaos, reflecting efforts to establish a new visual representation that could meet the demands of newspaper publication. However, with the political and social changes during the later periods of Nasir al-Din Shah's reign, the publication of newspapers also transformed, facing new challenges and forms of "chaos". The launch of the "Iran" newspaper marked the beginning of a new era of visual transformations in newspapers of this time. This research attempts to investigate how the signs of cultural cosmos and chaos emerged in the semiotic sphere of the press during Nasir al-Din Shah's reign, analyzing the visual characteristics of the "Iran" newspaper based on the binary opposition of cosmos and chaos. To this end, the study presents an analytical model for understanding the dynamics of the binary opposition of cosmos/chaos within a semiotic sphere, elucidating the visual characteristics of this newspaper while addressing two primary questions: First, how does the interaction between cosmos and chaos within a semiotic sphere facilitate the comprehensibility of cultural elements? Second, how is this binary opposition reflected in the visual characteristics of the "Iran" newspaper?

This paper is exploratory in nature while it employs a descriptive-analytical methodology, utilizing Lotman’s cultural semiotics approach. The data collection was gathered from documentary sources, meanwhile; the research samples were selected purposefully from all the issues of the "Iran" newspaper. The findings indicate that the visual characteristics of the "Iran" newspaper were established through a historical process resulting from the interplay between the cosmos and chaos in the semiotic sphere of Iran. In this evolution, certain prior norms were prioritized over others in addition to the new standard which was constructed by confronting a cultural other in the publication of “Iran” newspaper. Consequently, it achieved a hybrid identity formed through engagement with the cultural other and amalgamation with self-referential cultural patterns.