The Effect of Globalization Era on the Representation of National Identity in the Illustrations of Teenagers’ Fiction Books in Iran

Whenever there is a talk about children and adolescents’ literature, the role of pictures and depictions of books is propounded as an important element. Because of special aspects of their age, children and adolescents need pictures to provide them with a better understanding of concepts and subjects propounded in their books. Children and adolescents limited experiences, and vocabulary treasure, and lack of ability to receive various phenomena at the same time, and etc. all are factors that make it a necessary task to put pictures beside the text in the books of this age group. Of course, we should notice that these limitations will drop in numbers as children grow up, and in the books of adolescents we see fewer picture elements and more dominance of text. Valuable illustrated literary works of children and adolescents, in addition to help mental and intellectual growth, cause transfer of original and excellent social and ethical values to them and has effective role in acquainting them with fundamental issues of national identity of the land they live in. In today's age, whenever it comes to the national identity of any country, undoubtedly, the most significant challenge against national identities, is the phenomenon of globalization and necessities and requirements resulting from it. It is obvious that globalization age, by emergence of phenomena like internet and global media that has surrounded Iran like other countries for about two decades, can be influential phenomenon in changing method and content of adolescents’ depictions. According to this introduction and the importance of education from a younger age, that is a very fundamental time period in formation of adolescents' identity, performing such researches seems necessary. The purpose of this research is investigating the method of representing national identity in the depictions of research sample according to globalization phenomenon. The main question of this research includes this issue that how is the national identity represented in the depictions of this age group's books with regard to globalization phenomenon? The hypothesis of this research is based on this principle that Iranian illustrators, according to rich history of depiction in Iran, have used traditions of Iranian depictions in their pictures. Also, due to influences of globalization that has also surrounded Iran like other countries, they have also used global popular trends both in contents and in depictions. In this research that is extracted from the Ph.D. thesis of first author entitled "studying national identity representation in adolescent's illustrated books (case study: story books participated in four biennials of best books held by cultural association of children and adolescents’ publishers in the 90s)". After considering important concepts of research which includes globalization phenomenon from viewpoint of transformationalists, concept of national identity and its main components in Iran, research samples are investigated so that the method of representing national identity in depictions of adolescents’ books is determined. About research background, it should be told that there are different books and researches in the field of globalization and its influence on culture and art in which impacts of globalization on culture or other branches of figurative connection like poster, picture, and etc. have been discussed; but, a research on illustrated story books for adolescent age group that comprehensively considers issue of encountering globalization and national identity in Iran hasn't been performed yet. In this research, according to high number of research samples and that all these samples have participated in one of the most important conferences of publishers of children and adolescents’ book in Iran, an extended perspective of status of publishing book in this age group can be given to its addressees. Today, book illustration like other artistic fields, is influenced by globalization phenomenon. Influence of this issue besides contents, can be seen in implementing style of these works.
The method of this research is descriptive and analytic. In this research, for considering dimensions of globalization phenomenon, opinions of researchers in the field of globalization especially transformationalists have been used and the influence of this phenomenon on contents and book pictures of research sample is considered. Information was collected through library resources. Access to versions of studied books has been by field method and direct observation and photography. Study sample of this research is 170 story books written for adolescent and participated in biennial of cultural association of publishers of books for children and adolescents in 2017. This group of books is suitable for age group of A, B, C and overall age group of adolescents (almost 10 – 15 years old). Individuals of this age group, are in a period of their life that can understand more fundamental issues like national identity and its importance in the land where they live in. This biennial is one of the most important conferences hold for publishers of books specific to children and adolescents in Iran. Research approach is also globalization approach and particularly school of transformationalists, because, among different approaches toward globalization phenomenon, transformationalists' theories have the most overlap according to research question and hypothesis. This approach believes that globalization has caused a change of power relation within national and transnational levels. However, globalization has not caused the end of governments-nations as main political and cultural units. Yet, it is likely to cause global convergence in culture; a viewpoint that we will also observe as a result of considering samples of this research.
The results showed that books of research sample have been under influence of global flows beside influences they got in contents. In the subject of contents, cases like family relation and issues, human's relation with environment, social problems like migration and identity crisis were from significant contents propounded in the books. Propounding such contents isn't related to a specific geographical point, and adolescents from all over the world can understand them. In the subject of form, the use of perspective in depictions and schools of thought, influence of west painting schools and flows (Cubism, expressionism, surrealism and …),the use of colorful combinations under influence of web and digital space, influence of used spaces in prominent animes at the world level, were from significant attributes that illustrators have used in their depictions under influence of global flow impacts. On the other hand, we saw that globalization encouraged individualism and identity and increased minority movements and other forms of identification. On this side of globalization, we saw that global general culture did not try to eliminate differences, but, recognized differences and encouraged nations to manifest themselves. These nations can take a step in direction of globalization through engaging with themselves and utilizing common global flows; and indeed, influence of globalization projects according to local extension to social media and system that deliver cultural messages, has caused nationalism projects to have a more and better domain for presenting themselves and pull out themselves from margin. Also, we determined the most fundamental components that make identity and unite Iran's people in four categories: local identity or collective land; cultural identity; religious identity; historical identity. The study of pictorial features of research sample indicated that beside using these components in contents of books, identity-forming attributes of Iranian illustration have been considered in the form and style of illustrations, and as we mentioned in theoretical literature, the most important identified attributes were using traditional plans, influence of Iranian miniature and traditional schools in design, coloring and finally objectivist view point. We have also observed that transformationalists insist that the governments which have applied closed cultural politics for minimizing foreign influence, are more exposed to threat of cultural globalization in contemporary age and believe that national cultural politics and innovation should be determined in line with new global conditions. This will be realized when governments and policy makers in the field of children and adolescents, besides accepting and identifying manifestations of globalization, consider recognizing and introducing components of national identity.