Manipulation of Visual Contents in Journalistic Translation:Unraveling News Translators' Ideology-Driven Attempts toRestructure Identity and Image

Investigating issues related to identity and imaging in translation studies has received considerable attention in recent years. As news translation is an umbrella field for both, news translators and editors can manipulate narratives through visual content to provide the audiences with a predefined identity of their opponent groups. However, as news agencies claim to be unbiased, the line between factual and fabricated news stories is usually blurred. Thus, this study attempts to explore the probable restructuring of narratives through visual content manipulation to provide audiences with a distinct identity and image. To this end, ۲۰۰ Persian news stories, along with their English translation and visual contents, were selected. Persian news stories belonged to mainstream Iranian news agencies, while English-translated news stories were selected from western supported news websites. After data collection, relying on Baker's narrative theory (۲۰۰۶) and van Leeuwen's visual grammar, all translations with their source texts and visual contents have been analysed. After data analysis, the results confirmed the role of news translators in manipulating identity and image. More importantly, results showed that translators restructure narratives negatively to benefit their supportive group or agencies. Moreover, it has been revealed that almost all manipulations are mostly ideology-driven and related to political or power struggles.