Personification and ideology in the American media coverage of the Iranian Green Revolution. Text &...

DOI 10.1515/text-2013-0011 Text&Talk 2013; 33(2): 233 – 258

Paula Pérez-SobrinoPersonification and ideology in the American media coverage of the Iranian Green Revolution*

Abstract: Research on metaphor has consistently proven that metaphors always involve a degree of perspectivation, where certain features are highlighted while others remain obscured (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 153). The awareness of this partial mapping is crucial for the construction and reproduction of ideology. Spe-cifically, this study claims that the nation is a person metaphor plays a crucial role in the mass media coverage of conflicts. Through a thorough analysis of a corpus of 17 articles from The New York Times reporting on the Iranian Green Rev-olution (June 2009), this paper intends to unravel the extent to which both tropes allow the inclusion of the Iranian protesters into the Western “Friendly Us” while rejecting the Iranian government as an “Evil Them.” This work is theoretically framed within critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004), a fruitful inter-section between critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk 2001) and conceptual meta-phor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The synthesis of the results shows evi-dence of the potentiality of metaphor as an essential resource in the construction and reproduction of ideological discourses in the news.

Keywords: conflict reporting; Iranian Green Revolution; mass media; metaphor; ideology; critical metaphor analysis.

Paula Pérez-Sobrino: Department of Modern Philologies, University of La Rioja, c/ San José de Calasanz 33, 26004, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

* I would like to dedicate this work to Mario Serrano Losada for his enduring patience and con-stant support over the elaboration of this paper. This paper was written in association with the Center for Research in the Applications of Language (CRAL), University of La Rioja (Spain), with financial support from Project No. FFI2010-17610, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain.

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234 Paula Pérez-Sobrino

Language is politics, politics assigns power, power governs how people talk and how they are understood. The analysis of language from this point of view is more than an academic exer-cise: today, more than ever it is a survival skill.– (R. T. Lakoff 1990: 7)

1 IntroductionThe main aim of this work is to identify and describe the ideological implications underlying the use of personification in the media coverage of the Iranian Green Revolution in the digital edition of the leading newspaper The New York Times. These protests constitute a suggestive case study due to the profusion of linguis-tic manifestations of the conceptual metaphor nation is person in its media coverage.

Within the cognitive linguistic paradigm, personification is a type of concep-tual metaphor where the details of an abstract entity are understood in terms of a person. According to Lakoff (1991: 21), the nation is person metaphor “high-lights the ways in which states act as units, and hides the internal structure of the state: class structure, ethnic composition, religious rivalry, political parties, and the influence of the military and corporations.” Such homogenization is achieved through the simpler nature of metaphorical mappings based on the Great Chain of Beings (Lakoff and Turner 1989). This kind of metaphors highlights the corre-spondence of an attribute or tight-knit cluster of attributes across domains which are not premised on physical resemblance, but ultimately behavior (in such way that “human behavior” is seen in terms of “national behavior”).

Personification has been largely disregarded in mainstream critical discourse analysis as a persuasive tool to convey covert ideology in news reporting. How-ever, recent studies have emphasized the role of personification in the mass media coverage of international affairs, especially in the conceptualization of nations in terms of human bodies that interact in an international scenario (cf. Chilton and Lakoff 1995; Lakoff 1991, 2003; Kimie 2009). In the corpus under scru-tiny, the systematic use of personification raises a series of questions: which is the chosen person for the source domain and the abstract entity for the target domain? Which is the quintessential behavioral attribute put in correspondence through the metaphorical mapping? Is it possible to draw any relation between this cognitive mechanism and the ideological profile of the newspaper? This work tries to provide feasible answers to these questions by (i) identifying the existent personifications and (ii) exploring their meaning and correspondence to an ideo-logical bias (when existing).


Personification in the Iranian Green Revolution 235

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, I provide some theoretical concepts; in particular, I introduce some basic notions of critical discourse analysis (CDA; Fairclough and Wodak 1997; Van Dijk 2001) and concep-tual metaphor theory (CMT; Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1993) to contextual-ize the study of personification from an ideological perspective, as propounded by critical metaphor analysis (CMA; Charteris-Black 2004). In Section 3, I provide a brief description of the corpus of 17 news reports on the Green Revolution from The New York Times, and in Section 4, I deal with the methodological consider-ations relevant to the present study. Subsequently, in Section 5, I delve into the analysis of the corpus. Finally, in Section 6, I summarize the main findings result-ing from the analysis. Additionally, I highlight further research issues in need of development regarding the potentiality of personification to convey underlying ideology.

2 Theoretical frameworkThe present study, framed within the cognitive linguistic paradigm, takes as its starting point the approach suggested by critical metaphor analysis (Charteris Black 2004). CMA stems from the fruitful intersection among two independent but combinable research areas: (a) critical discourse analysis (cf. Fairclough and Wodak 1997; Van Dijk 2001), which upholds the analysis of discourse as social practice; and (b) conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993), which foregrounds the pervasive role of metaphor in structuring our every-day thought over the rather restrictive function as literary trope. As a result, CMA emerges as a new strand to the study of metaphor in discourse from a critical perspective.

2.1 CDA

CDA is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that emphasizes the role of language as a form of social practice (Hodge and Kress 1993; Fairclough and Holes 1997). One of the main tenets in CDA is that language plays a role in conceiving a propositional message, but most importantly an ideological one. As Van Dijk states (1991: 42), “power has more discursive nature in modern demo-cratic societies,” especially in the selection of what events are more likely to be covered by the media.

The role of the media involves the recontextualization and recreation of spe-cialized knowledge (in this case, international affairs discourse) into “everyday”



knowledge for the “lay” audience (Calsamiglia and Van Dijk 2004: 370). How-ever, only a reduced number of agents (namely politicians, journalists, scholars, writers, and editors-in-chief) have real control over what is to be published. These symbolic elites have preferential control over the “re/production” and “re/creation” of hegemonic narratives in mass communication events and hence acquire more power (Van Dijk 2005: 88). By means of various semantic explana-tory strategies, including personification, journalists bridge the gap between spe-cialized information and common knowledge.

The achievement of such awareness of the ideological message in discourse requires the examination of specific linguistic features (expressions of personifi-cation in this case) in relation to the discursive and the social context. Recent applications of CDA to the study of media (Koller 2005; Musolff 2003; Williams 2009) justify the urgency to critically analyze and deconstruct those ideological discourses which most actively legitimize or mystify power, inequality, domina-tion, exploitation, and violence.

2.2 CMT

A problematic aspect when analyzing ideology and the legitimation of domi-nance may be the adoption of an explicit political stance (Van Dijk 2001). This task becomes increasingly difficult if we take into account the recent tendency whereby ideological discourses are becoming less overt, encouraging illusions/false impressions of transparency and democracy.

In this respect, cognitively oriented studies can significantly contribute not only to reconstruct implicit inferences (in terms of metaphorical mappings), but also to understand their strategic discursive motivation. Commensurate with this rationale, Chilton (2005: 41) states that “the cognitive account [. . .] attempts to fill in some of the missing links that are implicit [. . .] namely, exactly how (i.e. by what mechanisms) can human utterances conceivably lead to appalling human actions.”

Conceptual metaphor is one of several devices that bridge the gap between the manifest linguistic signal and the abstractedness of ideology and cultural constructs.1 In their seminal work, Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson

1 It should be realized that there also are non-exclusively linguistic signals (pictures, drawings, sounds, music, odors, and gestures) that can also render metaphorical meaning. For an account of such multimodal metaphors, see Forceville and Uriós Aparisi (2009) and references therein.



(1980) provided evidence to support the pervasiveness of metaphor in our thought and its importance in the conceptualization of the world. CTM acknowledges that metaphor is a widespread phenomenon which allows us to structure one concept in terms of another. This mental process is necessarily partial (1980: 10), since certain aspects of the meaning remain obscure while others are highlighted. This asymmetry has important ideological implications for the strategic configuration of discourse. As Semino (2008: 32) notes, the selection of a certain metaphor leads to a particular view “including specific attitudes and evaluations.”

In CMT (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 25), personification is a type of ontological metaphor which structures events in terms of action by some agent, “so it is the agent that is personified.”2 Lakoff and Johnson subsequently redefined onto-logical metaphors in terms of a folk model called the Great Chain of Beings, a cultural model which defines attributes and behavior applying to humans, ani-mals, plants, complex objects, and natural physical things (Lakoff and Turner 1989: 170–171). As a result of the combination of this model with the generic is specific metaphor, we understand general human characteristics in terms of general non-human characteristics, and vice versa (as is the case with the nation is person metaphor).

The effect of the mapping across two concrete domains is the highlighting of a single and “quintessential” behavioral attribute which is put in correspondence between the metaphorical source and the target domains in such a manner that “human behavior” is seen in terms of “national behavior.” It is precisely this par-adigmatic centrality of the transferred feature which enables us to talk about one entity exclusively in terms of this feature. Because of the simpler nature of these metaphors, Ruiz de Mendoza and Pérez (2011: 18) have referred to them as one-correspondence mappings, which work “by highlighting one attribute or a tight-knit cluster of related attributes that are perceived to be similar across domains.” The nature of the metaphorical mapping depends, logically, on the ontological nature of the source domain. Section 5 accounts for the different types of source domain resulting from the analysis of the corpus, and accounts for the series of concrete subtypes of the more general nation is person metaphor.

2 According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), ontological metaphors are those having a physical world entity in the source domain and an activity (e.g., He put a lot of energy in his attack), emo-tion (e.g., He has fear), or idea (e.g., We have a problem) in the target domain.



2.3 CMA

From the cognitive-linguistic perspective, a conceptual metaphor can generate a number of linguistic expressions at the textual level. The distinction between conceptual metaphor and linguistic expression (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) has the advantage to relate apparently disparate utterances under one umbrella met-aphor, thereby producing global stylistic/ideological patterns (Esser 1993: 11). Since personification is recurrent enough to articulate the whole journalistic text, the critical approach to the study of this conceptual operation may reveal ideo-logical biases in media discursive strategies.

Charteris-Black (2004: 7) points out that “metaphor is active in both the development of a conceptual framework for representing new ideas and in pro-viding new words to fill lexical gaps.” In the case of the mass media discourse, the choice of a certain metaphor might be useful to mitigate the ideological stance and expand the illusion of transparency. CMA (Charteris Black 2004) is proposed as an ambitious interdisciplinary approach to both conceptual metaphor and critical discourse research with the aim of highlighting the hidden intentions of speakers concealed by the use of metaphors in discourse.

The Green Revolution constitutes an appealing case study to apply CMA as it counter-exemplifies previous research done on protests and media coverage of protests.3 The dichotomy between the protesters and the government is strengthened in The New York Times coverage by the use of systematic personifi-cation built on division and rejection (Martín Rojo 1995: 1). Division means estab-lishing an inclusive “Us,” made up of the protesters (oppressed by an abusive and fraudulent government) and the Western society (defender of democracy), and an exclusive “Them” (the Iranian government, headed by Mahmud Ahmadinejad). Rejection forces the polarization of their discourses to irreconcilable opposites without any “middle ground.” Such Manichean personifications blur the proper definition and understanding of the agents involved.

3 As Stamou (2001: 654) notes in her article, “there is a stereotypical treatment of [protest’s] subjects. Hence, previous research has shown that protesters are presented as the major source of violent events and as being generally aggressive in nature (Fowler, 1991; Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Trew 1979a). Police, on the other hand, are depicted as victims of such acts (Fowler, 1991; Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Trew 1979a) or, when they resort to violence, their acts tend to be miti-gated (Fang, 1994). It has also been found that protesters are ascribed other negative attributes other than violence, for example: immaturity, sentimentality, misinformation, disorganization or self-interest (Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Lee and Craig, 1992). Finally, studies comparing differ-ent newspapers (Fowler, 1991; Murdock 1973) have found more or less consistent news treatment of protest. Hence, there must be a stereotypical, naturalized and dominant discourse of the pro-test (Brookes 1995).”



3 CorpusThe present paper investigates conceptual and ideological implications of the use of personification in media coverage of the 2009 Iranian Revolution based on a specific set of data from The New York Times. The broader context is the grave ideological tensions between the United States and Iran since 1979, when the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was replaced with an Islamic republic headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This antagonism increased over the course of the 1980s and 1990s (Gulf wars, Afghanistan War) and reached a climax when George Bush included Iran in the so-called “Axis of Evil” during the war in Iraq in 2002. The immediate context involves the Iranian civil protests in the aftermath of Iran’s June 2009 election. Moussavi and other leaders of the opposition, as well as most of the Western media, accused the re-elected Mahmud Ahmadinejad of fraud. Thousands of Iranian supporters of Moussavi’s liberal party pacifically demon-strated in the streets. Eventually, the re-elected Ahmadinejad gave orders to the police to repress violently such denouncing actions. This revolution was exem-plary for many other similar movements in the area, framed by the international media under the label “Arab Spring.”

The corpus comprises 75 articles from the digital edition of The New York Times. Since the corpus is quite heterogeneous with regard to number of tokens and their distribution, I have chosen 17 highly representative articles for the anal-ysis on the basis of two reasons: (a) these reports are narrower in time (they were published between 12 June 2009, the first election round, and 23 June 2009, the aftermath of the second one); and also (b) they are closer in topic (they fully cover the post-electoral revolts in contrast to previous or subsequent reports which re-late to the conflict more partially or indirectly). The articles were featured in both international and opinion sections (news reports, chronicles, opinion articles, and columns).

4 Methodology4.1 Metaphor identification

I have carried out the analysis following the approach suggested by Forceville (1996), who addresses three important questions to be asked of anything purport-ing to be a metaphor:1. What are the two terms of the metaphor, and how do we recognize them?2. Which one is the source and which one is the target domain?3. Which features are mapped from the source domain to the target domain?



Moreover, I enrich this analysis by taking into account the possible ideological implications underlying the nation is person metaphor.

4.2 Metaphor classification

Interestingly enough, the search in the corpus throws into relief multiple addi-tional specifications of the nation is person metaphor. These metaphors are classified on the basis of two criteria: source domain or type of person (i.e., concrete versus an unknown and general human being) and target domain or type of abstract agent (i.e., the nations and collectivities that played a role in the Green Iranian Revolution).4 In the light of the analysis, there are three possi-bilities for metaphorical source domains: (a) a known person (such as Obama, Ahmadinejad, or Moussavi); (b) an unknown person; or (c) a united collectivity. In turn, metaphorical target domains are comprised of four main abstract entities as target domain: (i) Iran as a country; (ii) Western society as a whole; (iii) the Iranian government as a political institution; and (iv) Iranian protesters as a co-ordinated mass of people. Emphasis will be set on the analysis of the metaphori-cal renderings of (1.1), (2.1), (3.1), and (4.1) (see Table 1), in which the source domain is a well-known person. The concrete nature of such metaphorical source domains logically determines the centrality of the mapped quintessential attri-bute, thereby maximizing the simplicity of international affairs reporting.

Table 1 provides an overview and a brief explanation of the subcategories of the nation is person metaphor identified in the corpus.

Apart from all the nation is person metaphor variants listed in Table 1, some alternative identification strategies have stemmed from the analysis. For instance, the (4.3) metaphor, Iranian protesters are a divided self person, relates to the heterogeneous internal configuration of the protesters. The analysis also pro-vides examples of the use of reification (the opposite mechanism to personifica-tion). This cognitive operation allows for understanding one abstract entity in terms of a physical thing, as is the case in (4.4), body of people is mass of water (here it is relevant to reinforce the positive image of the protesters). In addition, I briefly add a few references to the role of color used to polarize the Iranian con-flict at the end of the analysis.

4 This classification system has been designed for the specific purposes of this research project, and it is by no means intended to be extrapolated to other studies in the field.



4.3 Metaphor annotation

I labeled the corpus with UAM Corpus Tool, a textual annotation software (devel-oped by Mick O’Donnell, Autonomous University, Madrid).5 This program enables the manual annotation of texts in several layers and sublayers (in this study, the main layer is “Type of personification” and the sublayers are “Iran,” “Western society,” “Iranian government,” “Iranian protesters,” and “others”; see Figure 1). This software facilitates both qualitative and quantitative research. Regarding the former, the software provides a global and comprehensive view of the metaphori-

5 UAM Corpus Tool: http://www.wagsoft.com/CorpusTool/.

Table 1: Classification of the identified specifications of the nation is person metaphor in the corpus

(1) Personification of Iran(1.1) Iran is Ahmadinejad: cases in which the country is incarnated in the body of the

reelected president Ahmadinejad.(1.2) Iran is the government: cases in which the nation is identified with the theocratic

government as if it were a human being.(1.3) Iran is the protesters: personifications of Iran in terms of the protesters.

(2) Personification of the Western society(2.1) Western society is Obama: cases of personification of the whole of Western society in a

concrete politician.(2.2) Western society is the United States: cases of personification in a particular nation

with human attributes, i.e., the United States.(2.3) Western society is a human being: cases in which the whole West is defined as a

non-identified individual person.

(3) Personification of the Iranian government(3.1) The Iranian government is Ahmadinejad: cases in which the entire Iranian government

is personified in a concrete politician, namely Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the re-elected president.

(3.2) The Iranian government is a human being: cases in which the Iranian government is personified in an unidentified human being.

(4) Personification of the Iranian protesters(4.1) Iranian protesters are Moussavi: cases in which the Iranian protesters are personified

in a concrete politician, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the main opposition candidate.(4.2) Iranian protesters are a human being: cases in which Iranian protesters are

personified in an unidentified human being


http://www.wagsoft.com/CorpusTool/


cal matrix; concerning the latter, the program also provides exhaustive numerical data on frequency and distribution of tokens.

5 AnalysisTable 2 completes the taxonomy provided in Table 1 with the number of appear-ances (n) and percentage of occurrence for each personification (%) used by jour-nalists when reporting about abstract entities. The corpus contains a total of 173 linguistic manifestations of personification. Figure 2 shows the distribution of the metaphors throughout the corpus.

5.1 Personification of Iran

The first section of the analysis deals with cases in which Iran is articulated as a human being. For this purpose, this personification has been divided into three subcategories (see Figure 3 for a detailed graphical representation of the results): (i) Iran is Ahmadinejad (where “Ahmadinejad’s behavior” is directly mapped onto “Iran’s behavior”), (ii) Iran is the government (when the country is em-bodied in the Iranian government as an institution with human attributes), (iii) Iran is the protesters (when Iran responds to the will of the body of protesters as a unified movement).

Fig. 1: Manual annotation in layers and sublayers with UAM Corpus Tool



Table 2: Distribution of the linguistic manifestations of the nation is person metaphor in number of units (n) and frequency rate (%) in the corpus

Nation is person N = 173 %

5.1. Personification of Iran 36 20.02Iran is Ahmadinejad 4 11.02Iran is the government 12 33.38Iran is the protesters 20 55.72

5.2. Personification of Western society 27 14.67Western society is Obama 12 44.44Western society is the United States 10 37.04Western society is a human being 5 18.52

5.3. Personification of the Iranian government 34 18.48The Iranian government is Ahmadinejad 22 63.64The Iranian government is a human being 12 36.36

5.4. Personification of the Iranian protesters 76 41.30Iranian protesters are Moussavi 30 40Iranian protesters are a human being 30 40Iranian protesters is a divided self person 16 20

5.5. Other 25 12.54Body of people is body of water and color metaphors

Fig. 2: Frequency rate per category of personification in the corpus



5.1.1 Iran is Ahmadinejad

Iran is embodied in the figure of Ahmadinejad in only 11.02% of the cases in which The New York Times personifies Iran as a country.6 Through this metaphor, Ahmadinejad’s defining features are put in correspondence with the whole coun-try, thus rendering a tailored picture of Iran’s role. For instance, see (1) below: this example renders how Ahmadinejad acquires the status of the country which is capable of communicating with the United States. The use of such reductionist allusions to a country largely simplifies the understanding of international rela-tions. Here the personification triggers an outstanding asymmetry of power: by identifying Iran with Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent actions, the whole country is thus under suspicion of the same actions. This generalization may trigger inter-national condemnation to such an extent that it may steer Iran toward a new and more communicative dialog with the United States (here kept in its intangible form of international reference). The main communicative effect is an absence of identification of the country with the re-elected president. It further provides sup-port to The New York Times and Iranian reformists’ hypothesis of electoral fraud and rigging of results.

6 Henceforth, percentages describe the proportion of instances in each category. Thus, the fre-quency rate of Iran is Ahmadinejah is the 11.02% of the personification of Iran.

Fig. 3: Distribution of the metaphorical categories within Personification of Iran



(1) (06_13_NYT_mark_landler) [emphasis mine] The intensity of the campaign and the huge turnout might make Ahmadinejad

more receptive to the United States.

5.1.2 Iran is the government

Iran is associated to a higher percentage with its government than with Ahma-dinejad (33.38% of the textual units). Personifications of this kind confer a more democratic and consistent nature to the country. It must be noted that the Iranian government is structured by several organisms: the Supreme Leader, the Council of Ayatollahs, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, and the Parliament (or Majils), among others. These organisms have real competences over the president: for instance, the future of the uranium industry actually de-pends on the Council of Ayatollahs, and not on the president. Therefore, the per-sonification of Iran in (2) refers to this particular Iranian authority, and not to Ahmadinejad.

(2) (06_13_NYT_mark_landler) [emphasis mine] Or it can tacitly accept that Iran is not going to stop enriching. [Speaking about

the United States expectations about Iran’s enrichment of uranium]

This linguistic choice might have two side effects: on the one hand, it high-lights the break between Iranian authorities and the president; on the other, it delegitimizes the establishment’s threatening actions such as uranium enrich-ment. The emphasis on these two issues suggests the newspaper’s lack of support for the Iranian government (which, by extension, holds for the Iranian protesters’ and the Western democratic-liberal society’s lack of support for the Iranian authorities).

5.1.3 Iran is the protesters

The most striking fact in the corpus is that Iran is identified with the opposition movement in more than half of the cases (55.72%). By means of this metaphorical choice, The New York Times focuses on the protesters’ initiative in their particular demands (request of transparency, democracy, and recounting of the votes) as well as in their general ones (respect for human rights, closure of the nuclear en-richment program, and opening up to the West). As a liberal newspaper, The New York Times reports from a democratic perspective, which relates to the classic



dictum “sovereignty of the people.” Although this notion pervades the ideologi-cal stance of the American newspaper, it is worth noting that the newspaper identifies the entire nation only with the bulk of reformist demonstrators concen-trated in Tehran. On the contrary, the rest of the country (peripheral and rural areas) remains traditionally pro-conservative and alien to the election riots. In particular, examples (3) and (4) stress the uncertain fate of the protesters after the publication of the election results expanding its scope of influence to the entire country.

(3) (06_14_NYT_roger_cohen) [emphasis mine] Iran’s Day of Anguish.

(4) (06_18_NYT_nazila_fatih_michael_slackman) [emphasis mine] As confrontation deepens, Iran’s path is unclear.

5.2 Personification of the Western society

The Western society is mentioned 27 times (14.67%) in the corpus of the media reports on the election crisis in Tehran (see Figure 4). This fact may come as a surprise, since the Western countries played no direct role in a Middle Eastern civil crisis. However, the dynamics of a globalized world and technological devel-opments have shaped a new media reporting routine. Internet and the new infor-

Fig. 4: Distribution of the metaphorical categories within Personification of Western society



mation technologies break temporal and geographical boundaries and set up a continuous, multidirectional, and global flux of information. All these techno-logical developments make a global democracy strong and vulnerable to a similar extent, since it may well benefit from local achievements as well as suffer from a regional crisis.

5.2.1 Western society is Obama

The idiosyncrasy of the Western society is reduced not only to the United States’ conception of the world (which differs from the European in several aspects, such as historical heritage, political options, and cultural values), but also to the figure of its president. The embodiment of the Western society in Obama is the most outstanding feature in the subsection, which amounts to 44.44% of the cases. Interestingly enough, it deserves mentioning that the United States has a full presidential republic in which citizens elect their president through direct vote. This fact may explain the stress laid on the personal characteristics of the presi-dent. In contrast, European parliamentary constitutional monarchies or repub-lics adopt indirect vote, i.e., the citizens just vote for the political party and then each respective parliament decides which member of the winning party will be-come the president or the prime minister. Consequently, European election mani-festos tend to focus on abstract ideas rather than in personal and empathetic features.

Consider (5) and (6). By means of the Western society is Obama metaphor, The New York Times places Obama and Iran at the same discursive level. The triggered metaphorical mapping puts Obama’s quintessential tight-knit cluster of attributes (Democrat, American, hegemonic position of power, etc.) in corre-spondence with the whole Western society. This personification fundamentally disregards the political, historical, and cultural differences within the United States (for instance, with Republicans and other political supporters), but also with the rest of developed countries in Europe and members of the Common Wealth.

(5) (Heading. 06_21_NYT_helen_cooper) [emphasis mine] Exploring Iran’s unrest and the Obama factor.

(6) (06_14_roger_cohen) [emphasis mine] I’ve argued for engagement with Iran and I still believe in it, although, in the

name of the millions defrauded, President Obama’s outreach must now await a more decent interval.



5.2.2 Western society is the United States

This category deals with those cases in which the actions of the Western society are identified without explicitly mentioning Obama. The United States as a unit encompasses the collective willingness of all the Western members in 37.04% of the corpus. This reductionist personification, while having the same restrictive-ness stated above, equally counts on an effective potential to achieve homoge-neity among the developed countries from the Western world.

Notice in (7) how the stance adopted by the United States with respect to the Iranian crisis is unified with the position adopted by the rest of the countries in the world (which might follow the American leadership, support the Iranian gov-ernment, or not even care).

(7) (06_13_NYT_mark_landler) [emphasis mine] “We, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian

people decide”, secretary Hillary Clinton said.

In turn, the United States is structured in (8) as a country which needs to restore its physical appearance in an international scenario in order to regain its hege-mony to build better relations with another character (here, Iran).

(8) (06_21_NYT_helen_cooper) [emphasis mine] Both of those arguments gave the United States an outsize role at the epicenter

of an unfolding story [. . .] about Iran and its own problems.

5.2.3 Western society is a human being

Finally, 18.57% of the occurrences in this section of the corpus correspond to per-sonifications in which the “West” is conceived of as a person but not as explicitly American. Since personification entails the highlight of a paradigmatic feature and the blurring of the details, the Western society is a human being metaphor avoids the permanent hegemony of any particular developed country; it confers the West an unexpected degree of completion and legitimacy as a decision maker in international policy. The New York Times’ reporters may fear that any internal division could fragment the unity of the Western society and push it toward the “Other.” This third category foregrounds the discursive bi-directionality in the construction of “the evil Them”: polarization is achieved not only by exaggerat-ing the differences with the “enemy,” but also by stressing the similarities be-tween the allied nations.



In example (9), the notion of “West” is structured in terms of a natural inter-locutor to the Iranian opposition candidate Moussavi. This mechanism, once again, includes in the unbounded notion of the “West” not only supportive Western countries, but also several Western countries that may be either in favor of Ahmadinejad, against the Western society elites, or nations left out of the inter-national political scenario.

(9) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] Mr Moussavi would clearly push for a less confrontational stance towards

the West.

5.3 Personification of the Iranian government

When portrayed as a human being, The Iranian government (18.48% of the corpus) is at times depicted in terms of the concrete figure of Ahmadinejad or of the group of members that constitute the religious and political elites of the country. In this context, this distinction is crucial to determining who is perceived responsible for the violation of democratic rights. Figure 5 provides a schematic overview of the results.

Fig. 5: Distribution of the metaphorical categorizations within Personification of the Iranian government



5.3.1 The Iranian government is Ahmadinejad

In a high percentage of the identified cases (63.64%), the Iranian government is attributed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s human abilities. This metaphor conceals the internal heterogeneous structure of the Iranian establishment (the Supreme Leader, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, and the Parliament, as mentioned earlier). The recurrent use of this metaphor casts doubts on the legiti-mation of the entire establishment by omitting these alternative administrative authorities, which actually have real competences over the president. In (10), Ahmadinejad’s quintessential behavior, “fraudulent politician,” is put in corre-spondence with the nation’s behavior through the metaphorical mapping, thereby highlighting this pejorative facet of the Iranian government. As mentioned above, the Iranian government encompasses several authorities that, although allegedly supportive of the re-elected president, played no direct role in the rigged results.

(10) (06_14_nytimes_robert_worth_nazila_fatih) [emphasis mine] The regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.

5.3.2 The Iranian government is a human being

The personification of the theocratic Iranian government into a human being different from Ahmadinejad (present in the 36.36% of the corpus) yields two con-nected epiphenomena: it fragments the unity of the Iranian establishment and triggers the idea of inconsistency and internal disruption. A new character is brought to the fore in (11): Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This theocratic authority, in representation of the Iranian government, is capable of controlling Ahmadine-jad’s suspicious actions.

(11) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, who has the final say in

state affairs and pretends to avoid open conflict, may force Ahmadinejad to steer a more moderate course if he is re-elected.

No concrete personification is rendered in (12); here the journalists choose to talk about the government in terms of a human being which, independent of and con-trary to Ahmadinejad’s stance, shows a receptive attitude toward the opposition’s candidates (yet somehow conditioned by the massive international media cover-age on the riots).

(12) (06_18_NYT_nazila_fatih_michael_slackman) [emphasis mine] With one hand, the government offered to talk to three leaders of the

opposition.



5.4 Personification of the Iranian protesters

Iranian protesters are the fourth agent involved in the Iranian crisis. If the inter-pretation of the Iranian government’s personification is vital to specifying the agents rejected as the “Evil Them,” personifications of the Iranian protesters shed light on who is included in the “Western-friendly Us.” Similar to the personifica-tions of the Iranian government, the tendency to identify a mass of people with the name and surname of a concrete leader (in this case, Moussavi) to the same extent as with an unknown human being shapes The New York Times’ identifica-tion of the protesters (40% for both cases). Consider the graphic distribution in Figure 6.

5.4.1 Iranian protesters are Moussavi

As a counter-balance to The Iranian government is Ahmadinejad, this meta-phor structures the conceptualization of the protesters in terms of a concrete pol-itical leader. Moussavi’s archetypal attribute (liberal candidate in opposition to a deceitful dictatorship) is equated to the protesters’ behavior, thereby providing an unexpected degree of homogeneity in the demonstrators’ attitudes (which in

Fig. 6: Distribution of the metaphorical categorizations within Personification of the Iranian protesters



reality belonged to at least three different reformist parties). In this way, demon-strations become politicized under the color green (Moussavi’s party corporative color),7 in detriment to alternative political voices raised against Ahmadinejad (such as the other two liberal parties involved in the election). Instances of this metaphor appear in 40% of the corpus.

Therefore, both The Iranian government is Ahmadinejad and Iranian protesters are Moussavi reduce the political debate and the election to the conflict between the two leaders. Note in (13) how these types of statements con-nect the general allegations of electoral fraud and the support for democracy with the sole figure of Moussavi, leader of one of the (at least) three liberal parties in-volved in the elections.

(13) (06_15_NYT_brad_stone_noam_cohen) [emphasis mine] We have no national press coverage in Iran, everyone should help spread

Moussavi’s message.

5.4.2 Iranian protesters are a human being

The New York Times’ lack of support for Ahmadinejad and the clerical establish-ment (in terms of limited media coverage) is counteracted with proactive re-porting of the protests. Through the Iranian protesters are a human being metaphor, The New York Times builds up the most similar in-group identity by identifying this part of the Iranian population with a friendly person who fights for his democratic and liberal ideals (frequency rate: 40%), as shown in (14).

(14) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] But the tactic has served to unify a diverse and passionate body of opponents

of [Ahmadinejad’s] populist economic forces and confrontational approach to the West.

In turn, (15) renders an alternative but coherent metaphorical expression: the situation of the body of reformists in Tehran after the violation of their demo-cratic rights is structured in terms of a dead body. Therefore, the quintessential attribute highlighted here is “moribund,” in contrast to “passionate” as in ex-ample (14). This ambivalent characterization of the protesters is regular across the corpus.

7 Personification grounded in colors is taken up in Section 5.4.4.



(15) (06_14_NYT_roger_cohen) [emphasis mine] A sullen pall enveloping the city.

5.4.3 Iranian protesters are a divided self person

This sub-metaphorical pattern arises as an interesting case study, since it gener-ates two contradictory movements of identification on behalf of the readers with the protesters. First, such metaphorical renderings help to complete the picture of the opposition candidates and demonstrators (as they introduce more details and features) and therefore make it easier to find a common place with any of this variety of protesters. Second, the risk of detail overload may simultaneously com-plicate the full and immediate identification with The New York Times’ readership (frequency rate: 20%).

In this connection, (16) introduces a new leader in the scenario: the embodi-ment of the revolutionary movement in Iran in the reformist Mehdi Karroubi. This case illustrates the intrinsic complexity of the Iranian reformist’s movement, but at the same time provokes loss of consistency and strength within the mass of demonstrators.

(16) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] And for all the hopes placed on him, Moussavi is no liberal. Another candi-

date, Mehdi Karroubi, is more closely related to the core causes of the Iranian reformist movement.

5.4.4 Body of people is mass of water and color metaphors

This section deals with alternative processes in which protesters are portrayed as an integrated entity. More specifically, I deal with the generic label “The Green Wave” popularized across the international media to label the Iranian post-electoral protests in 2009. While an exception to the use of personification in the same sense as Iranian protesters are a divided self person, it has been separated from the previous section because these metaphors do not conceptu alize protesters in terms of people, but in terms of water and color. Contrary to personification, reification or objectification is the process by which an abstract concept is treated as if it is a concrete thing or physical object. All in all, these conceptualizations are relevant for their potentiality to portray the protesters.



Previous research on the implications of mass of water metaphors (Van Dijk 1988) has pointed out the pejorative use of these metaphors in the conceptualiza-tion of the arrival of immigrants. As Van Dijk (1988: 183) observes, immigrants are portrayed through “a set of metaphorical expressions, borrowed from the style register of various types of aquatic disaster, such as stream, flow, torrent and wave [and] even in terms of an invasion, which suggests the imminent presence of a hostile foreign army.” Surprisingly enough, the embodiment of the Iranian protesters in terms of “waves” is used in the corpus in a much more positive way (as will be shown below).

The axiology of waves (in comparison to other masses of water, such as tides) logically constrains The New York Times’ conceptualization of the street demon-strations.8 There are four key behavioral features of waves that are mapped onto the protesters’ behavior. First, waves are the result of self-propelled motion and thus more volitional than tides, whose motion is a consequence of the effect of the moon on the Earth. Second, waves are natural and autonomous responses of nature. Consequently, the understanding of demonstrations in terms of waves legitimizes the protesters’ logical reaction due to the violation of their democratic rights. Third, waves cannot be controlled by human action (i.e., Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government, whose efforts to control the situation become thus trivi-alized). Fourth, the conceptualization of the protesters in terms of a wave confers integration and cohesion to the movement, which additionally reinforces the ap-proval vis-à-vis the international community.

The following extracts, (17)–(20), show how the body of people is mass of water metaphor articulates features and actions taken by the protesters during the demonstrations in terms of integrated and unstoppable masses of water.

(17) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] “Green Wave”, the name given to vast crowds of people who have filled the

streets in recent weeks dressed in the signature color of Moussavi’s cam-paign, demanding change.

(18) (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) [emphasis mine] As Iran votes, Talk of Sea Change. [. . .] A vast opposition movement has

arisen, flooding Iran’s major streets with cheering, green clad supporters of Moussavi, the leading challenger.

8 A contrastive study is provided in Pérez-Sobrino (2010), where The New York Times’ label for the Iranian protesters “Green Wave” is compared and contrasted with El País’ “Marea Verde” (‘Green Tide’ in Spanish).



(19) (06_14_NYT_alissa_j_rubin_anwar) [emphasis mine] Streams of Iranian pilgrims

(20) (06_28_NYT_michael slackman) [emphasis mine] Protesters still flowed into the streets by thousands on Sunday [. . .] “There

was a sea of people and the crowd stretched a long way onto the main street of Shariati” said one witness

The coherence of this metaphorical system goes even further insofar as The New York Times also makes use of “dust,” i.e., the opposite semantic field of water, as a variant for the metaphorical source domain (body of people is mass of dust). Along these lines, (21) and (22) may provide an insight into the complexities of a whole mass of water metaphorical system, which is likewise coherent in the use of antonyms.

(21) (06_18_NYT_nazila_fatih_michael_slackman) [emphasis mine] After insulting the huge crowds that poured into the streets by dismissing

them as “dust”, . . . [. . .] The crowd grew into thousands, stretching beyond the borders of the square, one of the largest of the city, and filling the sur-rounding streets.

(22) (06_15_NYT_roger_cohen) [emphasis mine] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called his opponents mere “dust”. “Well”, said

one student, “we will blind him with our dust.”

Moreover, there are several allusions to colors which interact with the “mass of water” metaphors. Moussavi’s campaign was identified with his political party’s corporative green color, while Ahmadinejad’s conservative supporters and the Iranian police usually wore black clothes. These two colors, which re-spectively correspond to feelings of hope and mourning, further enhance the con-trast between the two antagonists’ forces. This opposition is illustrated in (23), with the symbolic fracture between two conflicting ways of conceiving Iran’s future in terms of color contrast.

(23) (06_14_NYT_roger_cohen) [emphasis mine] And she was gone, away through the milling crowds near the lock-down In-

terior Ministry spewing its pick-ups full of black-clad riot police. The “green wave” pre-election euphoria had turned black.



6 ConclusionOver the course of this paper my intention has been to shed new light on the po-tentiality of personification to convey covert ideology underpinning the Iranian Green Revolution in the digital edition of The New York Times. This research con-tributes to our understanding of conceptual metaphor and its application to the critical study of discourse. Furthermore, the discussion offers a classification of several specifications of the nation is person metaphor, thereby opening up a new foray for the study of personification in the mass media coverage of inter-national conflicts.

The newspaper’s tendency to choose a concrete political leader for the meta-phorical domains carries consequences at the discursive level which might be ideologically motivated. First, the internal structure of the Iranian government is hidden, thus triggering the disappearance of authorities alternative to Ahmadine-jad. By simplifying the leadership of the country in Ahmadinejad, “an intensely divisive figure here and abroad” (06_14_NYT_robert_worth), the delegitimization of the Iranian government is justified. Second, Moussavi channeled the demands of the opposition (maybe because he was the only reformist candidate who made it to the second election round). However, it is acknowledged (06_11_NYT_robert_worth) that “another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, is more closely related to the core causes of the Iranian reformist movement.” The sole identification of the protesters’ claims with Moussavi’s electoral program leaves out the heterogeneity of the reformists themselves. Third, the sweeping reference to Western society in terms of President Obama hides not only alternative political attitudes – such as his opponents, other political parties, and other countries – but also the power and authority of international mediation organizations, such as the United Nations or NATO.

Furthermore, alternative metaphorical categorizations have arisen from the analysis. In particular, the body of people is mass of water metaphor is used to convey a positive image of the mass of protesters. The identification of the civil demonstrations against election fraud, like the unrestrained body of water, articulates and legitimizes the reformist discourse vis-à-vis public opinion.

All these findings suggest that a phenomenon as widespread as personifica-tion may play a significant role in communicating ideology. This study should, however, be extended and contrasted with research on the media coverage of similar conflicts. More specifically, the proposals brought up by this paper should be tested against the background of the rest of the revolutions involved in the so-called “Arab Spring” in order to enhance the characterization of personification and its ideological implications.



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BionotePaula Pérez-Sobrino is currently writing her thesis on multimodal metaphor at the University of La Rioja (Logroño, Spain). Her main fields of interest are at the cross-roads of critical discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics, especially with re-gard to metaphor in interaction with metonymy within multimodal environments. Address for correspondence: Department of Modern Philologies, University of La Rioja, c/ San José de Calasanz 33, 26004, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain <[email protected]>.


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