Introduction

Public diplomacy is widely understood to have three integral realms: news management, strategic communications, and relationship building (Sun 2015). This first aspect, promoting favourable framing in foreign news media, is an integral aspect of public diplomacy (Entman 2008). Media framing is integral to the construction of a national image. Positive and negative images can impact a country’s ability to enhance or undermine its international stature, its economic interest, and the opinions of foreign publics toward itself (Yousaf and Xiucheng 2020). This research documents how a country’s image can be framed negatively in news media narratives, focusing in particular on one element: gender. Gender is a significant component of nation branding, with countries like Sweden using progressive gender equality as a key marketable component of their place brand equity (Jezierska and Towns 2018). This study examines the opposite. It looks at historical gender based visual tropes in the news media, which contribute towards the deterioration of national brand equity in countries impacted by a long-term image crisis. The existence of such tropes may indicate the need for better news management efforts, and can carry grave implications for national brand equity, from decreased tourism opportunities to outright conflict, as was the case in Afghanistan, where gender rights were invoked as a liberal humanitarian justification for war.

To that end, this article provides a historical perspective on how institutionalized articulations of gender in visual news narratives may contribute towards the erosion of a country’s soft power potential. It analyses thirty years of photographic coverage given by Time to women from two countries ranked at the very bottom of the 2019 Reputation Institute list of ‘the world’s most reputable countries’ (Valet 2019): Pakistan (53) and Iran (54). Iran and Pakistan have a history of being viewed as negative nation brands. Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran is seen as ‘a state that is simply ruled by a handful of mad mullahs’ (Semati 2008, p. 2). Meanwhile, Pakistan, once described by former U.S. secretary of state Madeline Albright as an ‘international migraine’ (as cited in The Economist 2008), is viewed post 9/11 ‘as the world’s largest assembly line of terrorists’ (Jalal 2011, p. 7).

National image is inherently intertwined with national identity (Anholt 2011), and news coverage of a national image is in turn influenced by foreign policy concerns (Gilboa 2002). Roushanzamir (2004, p. 10) goes as far as to argue that ‘images of Iranian women are the tool through which the U.S. media signify Iran’, by virtue of being an instantly recognizable image type, ‘representations’ that ‘form a flat, simplistic, iconic, and memorable discourse of power.’ Meanwhile, images of Pakistani women in the western media are similarly viewed as being imbued with Orientalist stereotypes, as objects of fear and othering (Hameed-ur-Rahman 2014), particularly after 9/11.

It is important here to make a distinction in terms of the aims of this study. In terms of media coverage, scholars distinguish between frame in communication, and frame in thought (Druckman 2001, p. 228). Frame in communication refers to the words, images, and presentation style employed by an information disseminator (in this case, Time magazine) to relay information about an event or an issue to the audience. Frame in thought refers to how this information is perceived by audiences. This analysis limits itself to analyzing frames in communication, as a means of providing insights into how news management may influence a place brand. As such, this study does not examine the validity of the broader argument about whether the narrative of oppression of women in Pakistan and Iran is ‘true’ or ‘false’. It limits itself to examining how frames of communication may serve to mediate such perceptions.

Therefore, this article begins by providing a historical overview of how Pakistan and Iran’s image has evolved in western news media. It then lays out an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework for the study. To this end, this article seeks to integrate insights from several different theoretical approaches, including place marketing (Anholt 2005), semiotics (Van Leeuwen 2008; Durrani 2020), and critical theory (Butler 1990, 1993). Anholt’s (2005) Nation Brand Hexagon comprises six elements: tourism, exports, people, culture and heritage, inward investments and immigration, foreign and domestic policy. Gender, as this paper demonstrates, is a critical element of the ‘people’ aspect of a nation brand, and its significance is intertwined with other elements of the Hexagon (culture and heritage), with possible ramifications for foreign policy. This research study employs ideas from critical and semiotic theory to unpack the nuances and significance of the connections.

The visual representations of women in these countries, as projected by Time, are examined with the help of a triangulated methodology, comprising content and narrative analysis. The interpretive significance of the findings is unpacked using an interdisciplinary lens comprising place branding frameworks, critical theory.

Theoretical framework

This paper examines how iterated visualizations of Pakistani and Iranian women in news narratives are intertwined with structures of political power impacting international place brands. To this end, this article draws on four different theorists from semiotics and critical studies: Anholt (2005), Judith Butler (1990, 1993), van Leeuwen (2008), Durrani (2020). It’s worth noting here that there is precedent in place branding literature to conduct research from a primarily qualitative, critical perspective (see Kaneva 2011), which is where this research situates itself.

Anholt’s Nation Brand Index (2005) comprises six elements: Tourism, Exports, People, Governance (domestic and foreign policy), Culture and Heritage (cultural activities and heritage), and Investment and Immigration. This paper focuses on one element in particular: people, specifically, women. It then examines how depictions of women as people reflect on two other sub-elements: Governance, Culture and Heritage. The analysis demonstrates how these aspects complicate each other, with a negative impact on the holistic place brand narrative. Critically, this study asks: how do depictions of people (specifically women) seen as devalued by the state detract from national brand equity?

To this end, it connects with two concepts from Judith Butler (1990, 1993): valuable bodies, and iteration. Butler argues that the impact of stereotypes within discourse is to place less value on some subjects, at the expense of others. This leads to the idea that certain bodies are more valuable than others. Less valuable subjects are seen as ‘abjected or delegitimated’, not as bodies that matter (Butler 1993, p. xxiv). It is important, then, to interrogate ‘what counts as a valued and valuable body in the world’. (Butler 1993, p. xxix). The value placed, or detracted, from certain identities is enshrined within discourse through repetition (Butler 1990). This repetition is at ‘once a re-enactment and re-experiencing of a set of meanings already socially established; and it is the mundane and ritualized form of their legitimation’ (Butler 1990, p. 191). The question becomes: do visual news stories about Pakistan and Iran depict them as placing less value on women? What kind of women are valued within the news discourse by Time?

To quantify how visual news stories confer or detract ‘value’ from certain subjects, this paper draws on two complementary semiotic frameworks: van Leeuwen (2008) and Durrani (2020). van Leeuwen (2008) argues that visual narratives ‘other’ social subjects with the help of three kinds of visual cues mediating interaction between viewers and subjects: Distanciation, Disempowerment, Objectivation. Distanciation is when people are depicted at a formal distance with the help of camera shots. This involves representing people as ‘strangers.’ Disempowerment occurs when the camera looks down at the subject (high angle shot). Objectivation occurs when the subject looks away from the camera, and is represented as an object to be viewed, rather than a subject to be engaged with. In essence—when we don’t value someone, it is visually indicated by keeping them at a distance, avoiding eye contact, and/or by looking down at them. These are strategies that serve to ‘devalue’ a body in visual narratives. Complementing this, Durrani (2020) presents a set of strategies which confer value on subjects: adjacency (when subjects are presented close to the camera), empowerment (when the subject looks down at the viewer—a low angle shot) and subjectivation (when the subject looks directly at the camera). When we value people, we them to come close, look into their eyes, and look at/up to them.

Furthermore, it is assumed a nation brand can be devalued by ‘othering’ its people within news narratives. This paper argues that this is simplistic. As the analysis demonstrates, devaluation can occur by selective valuation of certain types of gender representations that do not reflect well on the brand holistically.

Gender rights in Pakistan and Iran: historical context

It is relevant here to provide some historical, geo-political context for the selected time period (1981–2010), which featured image/identity upheavals for both countries. Iran went from the Islamic Revolution to the Green Movement—the former elevated religious orthodoxy, while the latter sought to rebel against it. Pakistan allied itself with the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, and then fought with them, recast as the Taliban, post 9/11. These social upheavals also impacted pre-dominant gender narratives in and about these countries, particularly those surrounding women.

As a state, during 1977–1988, Pakistan was authoritarian and ideological in political structure (Talbot 1998, p. 245), ruled by General Zia-ul-Haq, America’s frontline ally in the fight against communism (Talbot 1998, p. 246). Admired in the West, Zia remained controversial at home. Pakistani women’s current legal was shaped largely his regime, which passed a series of repressive and regressive laws, contributing to the dual subordination of Pakistani women by ‘private and public patriarchies’ (Kirmani 2000, p. 16). These laws, and the mainstreaming of conservative discourses around the rights of women, has continued to shape the status, rights and image of women in Pakistan in the ensuing decades (Kirmani 2000). There has been progress, such as the Women’s Protection Act (2006); in 2017, a law banning honour killings was enacted. Nonetheless, as Chaudry (2019) notes, feminist activism is seen as the domain of the political and economic elite, and the extent of women’s rights remains a sore point of contention at the intersection of familial, cultural, religious and political forces. Consistent international news coverage of these issues means that status of women in Pakistan has become an integral element impacting the equity of the Pakistani place brand.

In Iran, the status and rights of women have been subject to similar debates. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, women have been a focus of Western fascination, and issues such as compulsory veiling have become the main line of differentiation between Iran and more ‘modern’ countries (Sohrabi 2001). After the 1979 revolution, many legal and social restrictions impacting women were imposed, creating a disparity in the legal status of men and women (Mahmoudi 2019). This includes stringent male guardianship laws, and compulsory veiling, a practice that has come in for much criticism in western media. These laws serve to render women invisible, insignificant, silent, and absent in public spaces (Mahmoudi 2019), and have increasingly become paradoxically counterposed against demographic trends. More than 60% of Iranian university students are women; literacy and primary-school enrollment rates for women and girls are estimated at more than 99% and 100% respectively. However, according to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Report, Iran ranks among the worst countries in terms of female political empowerment (Ziabari 2020). Like Pakistan, there is an active women’s movement in Iran, which has in recent years taken to social media, with pages like My Stealthy Freedom, where women post images of themselves unveiled (Mahmoudi 2019).

A history of contentious media coverage and place branding: Pakistan and Iran

Prior to the revolution, the ruling monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi, was the favorable prism through which news media coverage of Iran took place (Tadayon 1980). Criticism of the Shah was scarce (Dorman and Farhang 1987; Dorman and Omeed 1979). When the Shah was deposed, media coverage took an adversarial turn, focusing on events such as the hostage crisis (Dowling 1989; Larson 1986), nuclear weapons, western sanctions on Iran (Naficy 2008, p. 77), and Iran’s nuclear capability (Izadi and Saghaye-Biria 2007). Iran’s policy of compulsory veiling (Sohrabi 2001; Chan-Malik 2011) is also viewed unfavorably, with news coverage using the metaphor of the chador as ‘emblemetic of a political point’ (Roushanzamir 2004), a judgment on Iran’s political and cultural systems. Decades of such negative imagery in tourism generating markets in the West has resulted in a powerfully negative, institutionalized discourse made worse by the lack of effort, resources, and public–private partnership within Iran itself (Khodadadi 2019).

During the 1990s, cultural and political developments within Iran such as sporting events (Delgado 2003) and the popularity of Iranian cinema at international film festivals mitigated ‘the barbaric and backward impressions of Iran as a nation’ (Naficy 2008, p. 189). When reformist clergyman Mohammed Khatami became President, this image softened further. However, the events that followed 9/11 represented a major setback, and President George Bush included the country in the in the ‘Axis of Evil’ (Roushanzamir 2004). When a hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became President in 2005 (Semati 2008), relations worsened further. Global perceptions of the country shifted dramatically again in 2009, with the Green Movement, which protested perceived rigged election (Mortensen 2011), and received great coverage visa social media, with viral moments such as the death of a young woman, Neda Agha Sultan (Mortensen 2011) contributing to international condemnation of the Iranian regime. Maiwandi (2013) notes that Time covered female protestors with favorable emphasis, while being critical of the Iranian government.

Unlike Iran, Pakistan is an official American ally.Footnote 1 However, it is a complicated alliance, entailing minimal reputational credit in terms of media coverage, a trend that extends over many decades. While the American government supported Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, the elite American press did not (Becker 1977); nor has the American press historically supported Pakistan’s perspective on Indo-Pakistan Kashmir dispute (Mughees 1995) or the matter of American economic and military aid towards Pakistan (Mughees 1997).

After 9/11, stories of religious extremism and oppression of women came to dominate coverage in news magazines like Time and Newsweek (Khan 2002). Khan and Irtaza (2010) note that the post 9/11 Pakistan-US alliance did not earn the country much favorable op-ed coverage in The Washington Post. Similar themes were noted by Durrani and Mughees (2010), except for one key difference—Pakistan’s President General Musharraf received favorable coverage, even though Pakistani people did not. This is a contrast to the coverage given to Iran, where the people receive positive coverage, but the government does not (Delgado 2003). Overall, owing to the absence of active image management from the state, stereotypical perceptions of the Pakistani national brand solidified further after 9/11, along the themes of religious extremism, internal crises, and the nation as a threat to regional peace (Yousaf 2015), with Pakistani women placed within gendered and orientalist discourses by the western press, as Walters (2016) notes in her analysis of the coverage given by the UK press to the activist Malala Yousafzai. They are likely to be feared as the ‘other’, serving as a repository for western apprehensions about Islam (Hameed-ur-Rahman 2014). Attitudinal surveys reveal that the overwhelming negativity surrounding Brand Pakistan has led to the internalization of pessimism among Pakistanis (Yousaf and Li 2015). Yousaf et al. (2019a) note that these negative stereotypes have had a strong affective impact on how Pakistanis perceive themselves, thus contributing to their desire to migrate. Yousaf and Huaibin (2014) recommend that the reconstruction of brand Pakistan around ‘Sufi’ values of compassion and harmony may be an ameliorative measure.

As this literature review suggests, Pakistan and Iran’s place brand has been examined from various perspectives—tourism management, place branding, communication research, to name a few; national images can be studied from a variety of perspectives (see Pantea et al. 2016). As posited at the start of this paper, this study undertakes a critical analysis of the role of visual framing in news management, an integral component of public diplomacy. In pursuit of this aim, this study asks the following questions about Time’s coverage of Pakistani and Iranian women:

  1. 1.

    What kinds of roles are attributed to Iranian and Pakistani women, and what are the implications of that for the country’s image?

  2. 2.

    Which women are allowed to be close to the camera, to survey the viewer from a position of power, to look them in the eye?

  3. 3.

    Across Time, what counts as a valuable female body in Pakistan and Iran—and how do these choices holistically confer or detract value from the nation brand?

Methodology

This study employs qualitative content analysis, structured using an inductive reliability technique (Mayring 2000). The operational definitions of the content analysis categories draw heavily on semiotic theory (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006). Therefore, the implications of quantitative data are unpacked by simultaneously discussing their qualitative semiotic significance. The discussion section also takes note of key narrative themes which emerge over the course of three decades of coverage. These are discussed alongside relevant quantitative findings, to provide better contextualization. Finally, as an inductively designed qualitative study, the analysis focuses on descriptive statistics only.

Time, a historic artefact that has prioritized the visual in its layout and is known for its iconic covers and historical emphasis on photojournalism provides a suitable sample for historical visual analysis. The magazine has been in circulation since 1923 (McDuling 2014) and has remained in print for the entire duration of the study. Time is also prestigious intermediate agenda setter (Vliegenthart & Walgrave 2008), and there is strong precedent in media research to use Time for retrospective studies of textual and visual news coverage (see for example Griffin and Lee 1995; Khan 2002; Griffin 2004).

It uses a purposive sample, which is ‘a sample deliberately chosen to be representative of a population (Wimmer and Dominick 2003, p. 465). Purposive sampling is standard practice in visual research (see for instance Parry 2010, 2011).

Images were sampled from recurrent magazine sections notable for the use of strong visual layouts. These include feature articles (news features, issue-based features, profile features, lifestyle features, and explanatory/supplementary features, defined as which are small articles added into a larger feature article), photo features, photo essays, interviews, Time Person of the Year, and Time’s annual selection of the year’s most memorable pictures. It comprises 840 images about Iran and Pakistan, appearing in Time over 30 years (1981–2010). In all, Iran received 386 images, Pakistan, 454 images.

The unit of analysis for the study was operationalized as the image + caption + article headline + secondary headline. The accompanying text (caption, headline, secondary headline) was used as a verbal context unit (VCU) to identify whether the depicted individuals were foreigners or nationals. As Fig. 1 demonstrates, most of the images depicted Pakistani and Iranian nationals. The analysis in this paper focuses on data for nationals, in keeping with Anholt’s (2005) focus on ‘people’ as an element in the index.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Nationality (Iran and Pakistan)

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Qualitative content analysis was chosen as the study seeks to map and inventorize three decades of semiotic cues in visual news coverage. Traditional, fixed content analysis would prohibitively pre-determine the categories of that inventory, leading to low validity. Therefore, the study employs Mayring’s (2000) qualitative reliability tests. Mayring’s (2000) inductive category development process comprises four stages: determining research questions, inductively formulating category definitions, systematically devising categories (includes creating new categories or incorporating old ones into the system), revision of categories after coding 10–15% of data (this is when formative reliability is tested) and the final completion of coding (this is when a summative check of reliability is carried out).

For this project, an initial set of research questions was determined. Then, tentative content analysis categories were created. Based on these categories, an MS Access database was designed for analysis, into which all images were uploaded. The results were later exported into MS Excel for statistical analysis. The operational definitions of categories were revised where needed, with the help of a second coder, to ensure formative reliability. Once half the data was coded, all entries were reviewed to ensure consistent coding. This revised system was then applied to the rest of the data. At the end, the researcher reviewed the database coding records again, to ensure uniformity. Finally, two postgraduate coders performed a summative reliability check by coding 10% of the data. Using Holsti’s formula, for interaction analysis, inter-coder reliability was calculated as 82.77%, while for representation analysis, it was 81.23%. These categories are defined operationally in the following paragraphs.

The content analysis categories used here rely on Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) metafunctions: representation and interaction. Yousaf et al. (2019a) posit that a country’s image comprises two kinds of evaluations: cognitive (beliefs and opinions about the attributes and characteristics of a place) and affective (feelings and emotions about a place) Representation connects with the cognitive dimension. It refers to ‘the ability of semiotic systems to represent objects and their relations in a world outside the representational system or in the semiotic systems of a culture’ (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 47). This paper quantifies representation into one specific category: roles (the professional position/status held by the woman, as indicated by visual cues and VCU). For instance, in this study, in the 1980s, ordinary Iranian women were depicted simply as faceless, unnamed presences, and not in any professional roles, whereas in the 2000s, there are images of female foot-ballers, doctors, and activists. In the context of this example, this category gives an overview of what the women of a given country look like, since identifiable actors in their capacity as accessible, visible, national representatives, come to symbolize their countries over time. Table 1 provides an overview of the operationalized definitions of the categories.

Table 1 List of roles (operational definitions)
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The second category is Interaction, which refers to a semiotic mode that can represent a particular social relation between the producer, the viewer and the object represented (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 43). This connects with the affective dimension, as it mediates whether we look up at or down at someone, whether we can be close to them or not, and if we can look them straight in the eye. This translates into three categories: Gaze/Eye Contact (Direct, Indirect), Power Relations (Intimate vs. Social Distance).

  1. 1.

    Social Distance (Shot Type) This refers to how camera shots emulate the social distance people keep from each other (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 124).

    • Intimate Personal Distance The distance at which another is close enough to touch (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, 124). Shot types are: extreme close up (ECU) where a specific body part (say lips) fills up the frame; close-ups (CU) (e.g. of the face), and medium close ups (MCU) which depict the face, head, shoulders/ chest.

    • Social/Public Distance Shots depicting the subject at a further, formal distance (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 124).These include mid-shot (MS) (shows the person from the waist up); medium long shot (MLS) (shows about three quarters of the person), long shot (LS), which shows the person in full length, and extreme long shot (ELS), which prioritizes the background/context over the individual.

  2. 2.

    Power Relations and Camera Angle Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) argue power relations as represented by the camera are mediated by camera angles. These include: low angle shot (LAS) where the subject is given more power over the reader/viewer; equal angle shot (EAS), where the perspective is that of equality, and high angle shot (HAS), where the reader/viewer has power over the subject.

  3. 3.

    Gaze and Eye Contact Different meaning potentials are attached to whether the subject looks directly at the camera/viewer, or away from it. To this end, this study provides five categories: direct eye contact, which is direct gaze associated with establishing a pseudo-social bond with the viewer (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 118), indirect eye contact (where the subject looks away from the camera, and is presented as an object to be scrutinized), no eye contact (subject is blindfolded or has back turned to the camera, implying a sense of disengagement), not applicable (close ups of body parts, photos of corpses), mixed (photos of small groups, where some look at and some look away from the camera) and unclear (image quality does not allow determination of eye contact status).

The paper integrates the results of semiotic content analysis with qualitative narrative analysis. As Jezierska and Towns (2018, p. 57) note, ‘nation branding concerns the construction of narratives about the nation, narratives which are necessarily selective in what they include and leave out’; analytical critique, therefore, ‘serves to denaturalize, to show the contingent and partial nature of the narratives that serve to package and export coherent images and messages about a nation.’ It is important, then, to examine how semiotic cues serve to create naturalized holistic narratives about the way gender integrates into a negative place brand. To that end, the analysis examines the trends in the data with reference to the several qualitative aspects. The first is roles. In any story, roles are central to defining an actor/character. Individual protagonists create causes and register effects by triggering and reacting to events (Bordwell and Thompson 2008). This aspect is measured quantitatively too, but qualitatively, the analysis differentiates between roles and functions. Roles are filled by characters (villain, hero etc.) and functions constitute the plot; e.g. character leaves home, or joins a quest (Propp, cited in Hansen et al 2004, p. 148). The second is actor growth and development (Bordwell and Thompson 2008), which refers to the way actors are set up in the story—this may influence the reader’s expectations of the nature of effects they may have on actual events, and finally, narrative endings and beginnings (Bordwell and Thompson 2008), as a means of providing a story synopsis.

Discussion and analysis

The role of Pakistani and Iranian women in Time: marginalization, resistance and judgement

The data reveals that in both countries, men dominate the coverage—the relative absence of women is in itself as a reflection of the way systems in these countries can render women invisible and silent in public spaces, to paraphrase Mahmoudi (2019). The paper focuses, therefore, on in-depth analysis of photographs featuring women only (Iran = 41 images (10.62%) Pakistan = 76 (20.32%), for gauging trends in terms of how female bodies are ‘valued’ in visual narratives (with data about men provided as a basis for comparison) and the intersection of these concerns with foreign policy considerations.

It is interesting to note the manner in which the designation of roles for Iranian men.

and women differs (see Tables 2 and 3). Iranian men are most likely to be politicians, religious leaders, soldiers, and activist. Political roles are the most recurrent, which is unsurprising, given that Time Asia focuses primarily on political content. However, women are almost entirely absent from political roles. The predominant categories are, instead, activist and professional roles (most of the data for which comes from the last decade of the sample), and victims. Men are shown being in power; women are mostly in roles where they lack it, or seek, or, as the following discussion illustrates, their bodies serve as a site for expressing foreign policy considerations.

Table 2 Dominant roles (Iran)—gender differences
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Table 3 Dominant roles (Pakistan)—gender differences
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Iranian women also receive a higher percentage for the citizen and unclear/other categories. This represents a trend where images of unidentified women are inserted into articles where the caption and accompanying images weave them into a broader narrative. They function as supporting actors and as evidence for judging Iran’s political and social systems, (see also Roushanzamir 2004). Time utilizes photos of these unnamed women in two ways; first, to mediate reader perceptions of Iranian leaders and government, and second, for representing the changing face of Iran.

Butler (1993) argues that certain bodies are more valuable than others. Here, that argument is extended to demonstrate how the representation of certain bodies can be used to confer, or add value, to the representation of the nation’s governance, or a national leader. To use Propp’s distinctions (cited in Hansen et al. 2004), women assigned no clear role in the pictures still fulfill a narrative function. Two examples from different decades serve to illustrate how the bodies of women are used to confer, or detract, value from Iran’s political leadership, thus bringing into conflict the people and governance aspect of Anholt’s index (2005). A two page article (August 8, 1985) shows a photograph of Ayatullah Khomeni, alongside a gallery of photos, with the headline, ‘War and hardship in a stern land—a rigid theocracy harbors fanatacism and little hope for change’. Two similar photographs show faceless black female silhouettes in chadors, their backs to the camera, one at the cemetery and one at a beach. The women serve as a reflection of the ‘stern’ Iranian place brand. This is contrasted with an article from January 19, 1998. The headline queries, ‘New Day coming?’ A picture of Iran’s reformist President Khatami punctuates two contrasting images. The left side shows a young woman in a bright scarf, putting on make-up in a mirror. The right side shows a young boy burning an American flag. The latter image represents conservative Iran. The former image symbolizes westernization and progress. Images of women in the first article functions to detract value from Iran’s place brand, particularly the governance aspect; the use of a woman’s photo in the second article confers value on Khatami’s style of governance.

While Iranian women receive little coverage in terms of political roles, the situation could not be more different for Pakistan. That is primarily because of Benazir Bhutto—43 of the 48 photos feature her, emphasizing the power of even a single female leader in pivoting the image of a country. The next most recurrent category is ‘victims’, followed by activist and professional roles. As the purpose of this paper is to analyze the broader picture, given the substantial effect Benazir’s coverage has on the data, a section towards the end of this paper looks at representational and interactive trends for Pakistani women sans Benazir. This allows a more in-depth qualitative examination of the way ordinary Pakistani women may be seen as adding or detracting value to Pakistan’s place brand, in a comparable fashion to Iran, as without Bhutto, the trends for both countries are quite comparable.

Look at me: trailblazers, activists and victims

An Iranian man looks directly at the camera in a Time photo in 1981. In contrast, the first female subject appears 17 years later (December 15, 1997)—an anonymous little girl in a black headscarf and a blue dress, attending a ceremony commemorating fallen soldiers alongside her mother. A named Iranian woman looking at the camera appears 26 years into the sample—Nobel laureate and activist Shirin Ebadi (May 15, 2006). It is the first of three images departing from the stereotypes of the 80 s and the 90 s; female footballers (June 12, 2006), and a pioneering health worker (March 23, 2009). The narrative strand here is ‘progressive women’. Admittedly, this is a small subset. However, the dearth of data is a trend by itself, and this theme manifests itself in the way other visual cues appear in the coverage. In terms of actor growth, therefore, we see how the coverage moves across a spectrum of disempowerment to empowerment; the ‘people’ aspect of place branding is used a judgment on governance as well as culture and heritage.

As Durrani (2020) notes, there is a distinct diachronic trend when it comes to the way Iranian women look away, towards, or at the camera over the years. The 1980s featured photos of women with faces/gaze not visible. Coverage during the 90 s consisted primarily of color photos of women in public spaces facing towards the camera—but not looking at it, e.g. a smiling young customer in a restaurant (March 22, 1993). During the 2000s, as analyzed above, we start to see images of women looking straight at the camera—all trailblazing women challenging patriarchal norms, a semiotic manifestation of a ‘people’ challenging a ‘culture’. Diachronically, the pattern moves from objectivation to subjectivation—but value is placed on women refashioning aspects of Iran’s culture and heritage.

Only nine Pakistani women make direct eye contact with the camera, the first being Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto (November 14, 1988). The first two images within this sub-section of the data feature her. The third image does so indirectly, as it shows female political activists holding her poster. From then on, the remaining images are firmly embedded within a discourse of hardship or human rights violation. These include: female Bengali refugees in Karachi (September 25, 2000), acid attack victim Fakhra Khar and her benefactor Tehmina Durrani, both identified in the accompanying text as ‘two victims of domestic brutality’ (August 20, 2001), and human rights activist Asma Jehangir (April 28, 2003). Then, there is a picture of a female survivor of the 2006 earthquake, and finally, a cover photograph of Benazir Bhutto after her assassination. The headline reads ‘No One Could Save Benazir. Why We Need to Save Pakistan’ (January 14, 2008). This final picture of Benazir is, in a way, also embedded into a discourse of victimhood.

If, in terms of actor growth, Iranian women progress from victims to trailblazers, then Pakistani women change from political activist to victim/activist. Pakistani women who look at the camera are likely to qualify for the victim/activist label. It’s worth noting that this is a trope that has resonance beyond the page of Time. Malala Yousafzai one example. Pakistan’s two Oscar wins comprise documentaries about female victims of acid attacks and honor killings (see Zubair 2016, for an overview of the debates within Pakistan, triggered by these Oscar wins). Here, subjectivation gives value to female bodies not valued by their culture, or denied justice by governance. Affectively, the viewer is encouraged to connect with women not valued by the country’s culture/governance, thus rendering the subjectivation a judgement, of sorts, of the Pakistani place brand, in a way that diminishes the country’s holistic brand equity.

The women we look up to: Empowerment vs. Disempowerment

With reference to camera angle and Iranian women, the overall norm is equal angle shot; 27 out of 41 photographs (65.85%) are at eye level. Seven shots (17.07%) are at high angle, and include a wide range, including earthquake survivors (January 12, 2004) female military volunteers (December 6, 2004), political protestors (August 10, 2009), commuters (July 31, 2006), and mothers at a health class (March 23, 2009), and a screen grab from Neda Agha Sultan’s last moments (December 21, 2009). Excepting the final image, all other photos feature groups of women, and therefore, a high angle is primarily used here pragmatically, to fit large groups in a single frame.

There is, however, a distinct pattern in terms of low angle. A low angle, according to Kress and van Leeuwen’s system (2006), gives the subject power over the viewer. The only example from the 80s shows female military volunteers; the caption reads, ‘Defending the Khomeini government: chador-clad women receive training at a camp in the northeastern outskirts of the capital’ (August 17, 1987). This image empowers, and places value, on women who support the Iranian regime. This shifts during the 90s, when a low angle is used to empower women redefining their role in public spaces. Examples include a group of women in amusement park (May 6, 1991), playing golf (July 6, 1998) a make-up artist with an actress (July 6, 1998). In the 2000s, we see a new theme—politically engaged women. The first depicts women voting; the caption reads ‘A Gentler Iran. An alliance of moderates offers new hope for relations with the West’ (March 31, 2008). Another depicts political protestors, from the Green Movement (June 29, 2009). We see, again, evidence of a trend noticed also by Delgado (2003) and Durrani (2020)—the oppositional juxtaposition of ‘people’ and ‘governance’, at the expense of governance.

Pakistani women receive a higher percentage of high angle shots as compared to Pakistani men (20 images, or 26.32%). That is more than the percentage received by Iranian women (17.07%). Five such photos depict Benazir Bhutto. This can be interpreted in two ways. One, Bhutto’s gender renders her more likely to be portrayed in that way. However, all these photos show Bhutto with her supporters—it could be argued that this representational cue empowers her, offsetting the traditional interpretation of high angle as disempowering. Four other images depict victims of natural disasters/violence. These examples fit Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) interpretation—the high angle emphasizes the vulnerability of these women. Three show voters, and five depict women going about a range of activities: a group of religious students with their heads covered in white shawls, women doing housework etc. In most of these images, the purpose of the high angle seems to be more inclined towards capturing the ambience or activities the women are engaged in.

As with Iran, the trend for low angles has similarities to the trends for gaze. In the first phase, political workers are empowered and given value, while later, activist/victims. Affectively, we are first encouraged to admire women working for the system; later, for women resisting it. Pakistani women receive a total of 10 (13.17% of their coverage) as low angle shots. The first seven low angle shots depict politicians and political activists. Benazir Bhutto (March 27, 1989) is the first one in this series while, actress-turned-politician Mussarrat Shaheen is the last (February 3, 1997). The next three fall within the binary of victim/crusader: Bengali immigrants (September 25, 2000), activist and progressive poetess Attiya Dawood (October 1, 2001) whose views are contrasted with those of religious radicals, and gang rape victim-turned-activist, Mukhtaran Bibi (May 8, 2006). This trend connects with the data trend for direct eye contact. The trend in the first two decades—political activism—adds value to Pakistan’s place brand, as it shows a culture of women/people engaging with systems and governance. The valuable bodies in the second trend features women struggling against the system—the value given to them, detracts from the value given to governance/culture and heritage.

Social distance: closer over Time

With reference to social distance, social/public distance is the most heavily populated category for both Iranian men and women, although the percentage is higher for women (80.48%, as compared to 73.54% for men). Once again, interactive cues for Iranian women change across time—the camera grows progressively closer (see Fig. 2). The 80 s are dominated by long shots. The 1990s feature more photos within the close personal distance category. Instead of just long shots, (LS = 5) the social/public distance category contains much more variety (MLS = 3, and MS = 1). The camera draws even closer during the 2000s. Within the social/public distance category, the medium long shot replaces the long shot as the most recurrent (9 and 4 photos respectively). See also Fig. 1.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Social distance: Iranian women across time

Full size image

Most Pakistani men and women are also depicted at social/ public distance, but less so than Iran. The clearest difference is terms of the distance at which women from both countries are photographed. Almost half (40.79%) of the photographs for Pakistani women are taken at close personal distance, compared to 19.51% of Iranian women. Some of that inflation comes solely from what may be termed for the purposes of this analysis as the ‘Benazir effect’—10 of the 13 close-ups and 10 out of the 14 medium close-up shots depict her.

Pakistani women: A picture sans Benazir Bhutto

Pakistan’s coverage features more women that Iran’s—79 photos as compared to 41 images. However, one woman’s coverage inflates these numbers substantially: Benazir Bhutto. Without her, it is 32 images (7.53%). As the data for Iran is primarily focused on coverage of ordinary Iranian women, this segment focuses on what the collective face of Pakistani women looks like, in the absence of the mild data bias introduced by Benazir’s coverage.

There is a distinct diachronic transition from political activist to victim/crusader, a trend that manifests itself in several categories across interaction and representation. In the 1980s, 24 images depict women; of these, only two are of women other than Benazir. Both show women casting their votes in elections. The 80 s also features one Pakistan woman who looks at the camera—Benazir Bhutto (November 14, 1988). If Iranian women during the 80 s were distant and faceless, Pakistani women were political and present.

Between 1991 and 2000, 18 images foreground Pakistani women. Seven depict women other than Bhutto. Placed together, the images represent a thematic transition from the zeitgeist of the 80 s to the early 2000s, from political activist to victim/crusader. The first photo shows a political activist holding a poster of Benazir Bhutto (December 30, 1991). It is a low angle, medium close-up shot, in which the woman makes direct eye contact with the camera. The next one depicts a mother holding up a photograph of her missing son (April 17, 1995). The next three show two female political candidates on the campaign trail (Ghinwa Bhutto and Mussarat Shaheen respectively, February 3, 1997), and female supporters of a then-rising political star, Imran Khan (February 3, 1997). The next one shows women mourning a sectarian attack (September 28, 1998) while the following one shows women identified as ‘homeless’ Bengali refugees trapped in Pakistan in unfavorable conditions (September 25, 2000).

The 90 s feature five low angle shots, one high angle, and one equal angle shot. Four of the low angle shots depict women engaged in political campaigning and activism. Here, we see some evidence of representational and interactional trends that emerges with reference to Iran in the late 2000s. The lone high angle shot depicts women mourning an act of sectarian violence. On the whole, semiotic cues encourage cognitive and affective involvement with empowered women engaging positively with governance.

The 2000s offers a more complex picture. Out of 34 images, only 10 images depict Bhutto. Three images feature direct eye contact. Women who make direct eye contact with the camera are Fakhra Khar, the victim of an abusive marriage whose husband threw acid on her face, and her benefactor, Tehmina Durrani (August 20, 2001). These are the first two images of the sample from this decade. The next is human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jehangir (April 28, 2003), and the last one is identified as ‘Shahnaz’, age 20, a survivor of the 2006 earthquake (April 17, 2006). Subjectivation affectively empowers women treated unfairly within cultural and governance contexts.

A few distinct narrative themes emerge in the 2000s. Victims and activists constitute one strand. Political activism makes its way into two images out of the 24: a woman identified as a Bhutto supporter raises a protesting fist to the camera (October 14, 2002); a black and white photograph shows a female voter (March 3, 2008). The third theme, that emerged post 9/11, is conflict, a clash and crisis of identity.

Two key examples come from the data in the aftermath of 9/11. The first is an article about a family with divided liberal and conservative allegiances. The opening pages contain two contrasting images. The first shows conservative men burning televisions, referencing religious radicalism, and the other shows a poetess, referencing progressivism. The caption reads, ‘PAKISTAN AFLAME: Through such radical actions as the burning of TV sets, left, hardline Islamic groups often alienate progressives like Attiya Dawood’. The next page shows similarly contrasting images. One shows a group of young women in colorful western clothes in a mall, their faces clearly visible, while the other depicts a group of female students, their faces and gaze obscured by the hijab, reminiscent of photographs of Iranian women in the 1980s. The second example profiles a Pakistani teenager, Sana Shah. The headline reads, ‘MTV or The Muezzin’—an either/or statement—clearly frames the clash discourse. (‘Muezzin’ refers here to the person who gives the Muslim call for prayer). A teenager in a traditional Pakistani dress with a modern silhouette stares into the distance. In the background, blurred but completely visible, are the domes of a mosque. Sana symbolizes the MTV generation. Her presence is contrasted with the abode of the Muezzin (a mosque). Again, we see ‘people’ at odds with ‘culture and heritage’, to the detriment of the holistic place brand itself.

Narratives: beginnings and endings

Stories have beginnings and endings, and these two opposite ends of the spectrum are a useful tool for synopsis (Bordwell and Thompson 2008). The transitioning roles and functions of Iranian women may be summarized with the help of the sample’s first and last photograph. The first shows female Iranian military volunteers marching in favor of the government. The last shows the dying moments of Neda Agha Soltan, a viral moment from the Green Movement (Mortensen 2011). There is diametrically opposite shift in functions—from women supporting the regime, to women opposing it, a concise reflection of the changing relationship between the ‘people’ and ‘governance’ aspects of Iran’s place brand.

Pakistan represents a similar transition. The first photograph shows a sunny voting booth, with women voting in an election (March 11, 1985). This is in contrast with the dark, final image. The headline reads ‘Pakistan’s despair: After the Great Flood, a nation and its people pray for a new beginning’. A female victim of the massive flood of 2010 sits beside a fire in what appears to be a makeshift kitchen, with an old, decrepit building in the background. Again, in representational terms—the figure of the Pakistani goes from an empowered ideal, engaging with aspects of governance, to one at struggling to survive within it.

Conclusion

People are a key feature of the story of any place, and how a place treats people is integral to its image. As Yousaf and Xiucheng (2020) suggest, it is important for a country to humanize its people to cultivate relatability. This paper extends this idea to international news narratives about two countries with problemetic place brands and a contentious history towards women’s rights, and interrogates how Pakistani and Iranian women are humanized, and valued, via semiotic cues in international news narratives. The research reveals trends that indicate a humanizing of subjects at odds with the countries’ systems, thus bringing into conflict different elements of Anholt’s place brand index: the Iranian and Pakistani women valued in Time, via the cues of empowerment, subjectivation and adjaceny, are likely to be ones devalued by the country’s governance and cultural systems.

The story of Iranian women begins with images of faceless women compliant with the state and ends with the camera encouraging affective engagement with progressive, trailblazing women. Images of women are also likely to be used as evaluative devices placed alongside photos of different political leaders, to either confer or detract value from their governance styles. They are exiled primarily to the margins of the visual narrative in terms of presence and represented in roles without much power. In contrast, the narrative for Pakistan starts off on a progressive note, with Benazir Bhutto as a potent symbol of gender equality and democracy. During the 1980s, Pakistani women deemed as ‘valuable’ by the camera are likely to be political workers. However, from the late 90 s onwards, semiotic value is conferred on, and affective and cognitive engagement is encouraged with, subjects identified either as victims or as activists. In both cases, narratives around the ‘people’ element of the two place brands are used as judgment on aspects of governance and culture. It is not just about humanizing people—it is important to look at who is humanized, how that reflects on the holistic place brand, and how foreign policy interests and assumptions influence the process of humanizing.

It is also useful to examine how the ‘value’ of a female body changes, depending on whether a domestic or international discursive lens is used to debate it. Feminist scholars have previously interrogated the intersectional significance of the role gender plays in mediating national identity (Meral 2014; Broch 2016; Midden 2018). National identity, gender and patriarchy are often seen as interconnected, with specific gendered meanings attached to national identity repertoires (Broch 2016). This article extends this debate beyond identity (how a nation perceived itself) to questions about image (how others perceive a nation). Selective depictions of gendered meanings and customs, taken out of local cultural and political contexts, and evaluated against prevalent international norms, can strengthen, or weaken a nation brand. The space gender occupies in this liminal space between identity and image is a contentious one. A ‘valued’ female body in the international discourse may not be the same as one valued within the national discourse. In fact, being valued in one may lead to being devalued in the other. Probably one of the best known Pakistani women in the world within western news discourse, Malala Yousafzai, while revered in the West, is ‘reviled by many at home’ and seen as promoting a Western agenda (Kugleman 2019). Pakistan’s only two Oscar awards belong to the female activist director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who made films on the subject of female victims of acid attacks, and female victims of honor killings, and this too came under criticism (see Zubair 2016, for an overview of the debates within Pakistan over the subject of image/identity issues, triggered by her Oscar wins). Iran’s first Nobel Prize Winner, Shireen Abadi, whose coverage is included in this sample, went into exile, after being denounced as a supporter of the West (Khakpour 2017). From the perspective of feminist scholarship, there is space here to further examine these notions of ‘ownership’, the idea that the female body is a contested repository of national identity and themes of honor/dishonor. From the perspective of feminist oriented place branding strategy—it as demonstrated in this paper, gender is an integral part of the story told about a nation. Given the interconnected of the contemporary global information ecosystem, it may be useful for policymakers to think about not just the local implications of cultural frameworks and policy choices, but also how these will play out in international infospheres and discourses. This is going to be particularly important in an era of rising populism, with a relative curtailment existing gender rights seen in various countries. Two paradoxical examples of how domestic choices on gender rights may play out to the detriment of a nation brand would be Afghanistan, with its deteriorating image over women’s rights following to the return of the Taleban (Alexander 2021) and United States, with its ongoing debates about reversing certain rights previously taken for granted by feminist activists, such as abortion (Totenberg 2021).

It is important here to acknowledge the key limitations of this research and identify avenues for future research. This research examines data primarily from a qualitative, visual, and communication/ framing perspective, with the intention of encouraging debates on how gender narratives can add or subtract value from a place brand. It may be useful for researchers working in other areas, such as destination marketing perspective to examine, via audience surveys, and other rigorous quantitative methods, the importance of gender within the ‘people’ element of the place brand index, and how it adds and takes value away from the other elements, such as governance and culture. The research also hopes that the idea of presenting women in varied roles and functions, supported with narrative cues that indicate empowerment, subjectivation and adjacency can prove for practitioners interested in utilizing gender as an asset in in active place brand management. It is important also to acknowledge that stereotyping of Muslim men remains an important element of place branding when it comes to countries like Pakistan and Iran. While this paper focuses on women, future research may examine the impact of negative male characterization on problematic nation brands. It is noted here also that as the analytical framework is inductively designed and primarily qualitative in outlook, this study does not make use of relational statistical tests. Therefore, future scholars may adapt this methodology for constructing a more rigorously tested quantitative framework. Moreover, this research limits itself to frames of communication (Druckman 2001, p. 228). Future research may examine how these translate to frames of thought, via audience research studies.

Gender, as this paper demonstrates, is an important element of a negative place branding equation. It demonstrates how frames in communication (Druckman 2001, p. 228) may impact place brand equity. It is important for policymakers in places with an unfavorably perceived track record on women’s rights to be aware that these issues may influence their holistic place brand equity. It may also be useful for professionals seeking to rectify brand image issues to keep in mind how certain tropes serve to detract from the overall brand equity of a particular place or country, that they may adjust their news and media management strategies accordingly.