Legitimation through Image and Discourse: official portraiture and political legitimation in Iran between the monarchy and the Islamic Republic

Abstract

This work aims to explore the possibility of conducting an analysis of the role of official portraiture in providing legitimacy to political leaders in Iran. Our study focuses on the discursive and visual means of legitimation of the Pahlavi Monarchy and of The Islamic Republic of Iran, by attempting to “cross-pollinate” the Discourse-Historical method developed in Critical Discourse Analysis with principles of visual communication analysis which see images as performing an argumentative function. We argue that official portraits do reflect the particular legitimation struggles of the leaders therein depicted, and act as an aspect of the discursive effort to assert one’s legitimacy, be it conceived in modernist or traditionalist terms.

Keywords: Iran, legitimation, visual communication, Pahlavism, Velayat-e Faqih