Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.4, No.12, 2014 128 The Mediating Role of Cinema in Representation of Hard Power Case Study: The movie "Zero Dark Thirty" Younes Rashidi 1 Ghazaleh Saei 2* Mohammad Reza Faraji 3 Leila Hosseininha 4 1 Ph.D. Candidate in Political Geography, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran 2 MA Graduate Student in Political Geography Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran 3 MA Graduate Student in Political Geography, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran 4 MA Graduate Student in Political Geography Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran * E-mail of the corresponding author: gazellesaei1@yahoo.com Abstract In recent decades, critical geopolitics has worked to achieve a proper understanding of the conditions prevailing in the world by common discourse analysis along with power relations. One of the areas taken into consideration seriously by the critical geopolitical is the media. Media, due to its function in issues related to soft power and common discourse in geopolitics and soft power has the ability to influence the prevailing trends in public opinion through influencing on audiences and conveying information. Various media are widely used to enhance the influence and expansion of soft power and also strengthening the function of hard power by the states and especially the world major powers like the United States of America. One of the Media that has been utilized seriously to present an acceptable and also influential picture of states is cinema. In critical geopolitical perspective, capabilities that cinema provides to represent different real and imaginative narratives and also its entertaining and attractive nature for people lead to represent different functions than news media represent of themselves. One of the functions is to use cinema to represent the hard power in order to convince citizens and to convey the message of threats to enemies. As in 2012, in movie "Zero Dark Thirty" the hard power of the United States in the fight against terrorism was represented. This study intends to use the discourse analysis of the film "Zero Dark Thirty" in responding to this question what the mediating functions of cinema are in representation of hard power. Keywords: Media, cinema, representation, hard power, soft power 1. Introduction Countries throughout the history utilized various tools and methods to expand their influence and power level. Levels and scope of application of tools and deployment of methods in different times, various situations and groups that are going to affect it are different. What its importance has not forgotten is the hard power scope of function to consolidate power and gain an advantage over geopolitical competitors. Nevertheless the functions of "soft power" should not be ignored in influencing public opinion, because it would be able to reduce the financial, human, operational cost and … of countries to develop national strength significantly. Due to its entertaining functions, and relative willingness the citizens of the various countries have toward it, in this scope, media and among media cinema has the potential to influence public opinion in different geographical scale and in terms of time short term and long term. In the development of soft power, the increase in influence on citizens who live in geographical areas having the geopolitical importance is one of the main targets. Due to the fact that cinema largely represents the geographical areas and historical events affecting the geographical environment, it is necessary to examine the series of functions of cinema arguable in the scope of the concept of soft power. Within the framework, widespread studies have been done by different researchers so far to explain the method of functioning of cinema in increasing the soft power and influencing citizens, however, one of the issues that received less attention is clarifying the medium role of Cinema as a means to 'represent the hard power' with the enemy. This research seeks to review the movie "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) and its simultaneous and paradoxical function in 'soft power' and 'representation of hard power' using the critical geopolitics analysis. 2. Research Questions 2.1 Main Question  Why using soft power of media is done to represent hard power? 2.2Secondary Question  In the movie "Zero Dark Thirty," what aspects of "hard power" are represented?  Using cinema to represent hard power in the movie "Zero Dark Thirty" influences which groups? 3. Research Methodology In this study, we will rely on library method to collect data used in this research. With respect to the nature of subject of the study, it will be attempted to analyze data and research findings using analytical - descriptive