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Iran is the next US target, so the media are once again serving the state agenda by focusing on Iran’s alleged menace. |
An analysis of the biased way in which Iran is portrayed in the general media provokes a certain feeling of ironic dismay. Mainstream Western media has tended to promote the idea of Iran as pivotal to the alleged “axis of evil”. A perception has been created in the United States in particular that Iran is some monstrous state that is dictatorially administered and an unquestioned platform for the recruitment and proliferation of terrorism.
These views and pronouncements about Iran in the Western media have in fact created a myopic view of the reality and thus engendered a false mystique of threat and incipient evil.
Yet, in the first instance, there is an element of hypocrisy in this view of Iran as the aggressor and proponent of evil. Labeling Iran in the media as the “enemy” has caused a great amount of suffering in that country over the years, a fact that is barely reported in the mainstream Western media. The truth is that this country has a long yet less publicized history of hostile opposition from Western adversaries.
| An analysis of the media presentation of events surrounding Iran smacks more of propaganda than of genuine unbiased reportage. |
As one commentator states, Iran has suffered tremendously from the “enemy paradigm” (Zarif, 2007). It should also be remembered that the devastating war against Iraq was supported by Western powers. The Iraq aggression was bolstered politically and financially by a number of Western powers. There was also a less than immediate response to the invasion of Iran for the UN Security Council at the time.
As Zarif point out, when Iraq invaded Iran, occupying 30,000 square kilometers of its territory, “it took seven days for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution, presumably based on the widely held belief that the war would bring down the newly established revolutionary government within a week.”
To add to this, during the war various countries, including the Soviet Union, France and the Untied States provided military hardware and intelligence to Iraq, amongst others. Therefore, there is a certain amount to hypocrisy in the accusatory posturing of the West, which would demonize Iran in simple terms like good, and evil.
This aggression and attack against Iran for the West has been more recently perpetuated in the media — possibly, as some suggest, as a prolegomena to an actual military attack on this country.
The recent attempt to depict Iran as the new agent of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear devices has had an amazingly prolific support from sections of the Western mainstream media, with only a few dissenting voices challenging the hegemony of opinion and demonization of that country.
An analysis of the media interpretation and presentation of events in and surrounding Iran smacks more of propaganda than of genuine unbiased reportage. The mainstream news and media representation of Iran has tended to blindly follow the template that has been stipulated by the political views of the Bush administration.
The Media and the Art of Mind Control
| Journalism that ignores the effect of its reportage runs the risk of abusing the power of the media. |
One obvious example of the media representation of Iran through the lens of Western political consensus can be seen in the fact that the targeting of Iran by media conglomerates and even the BBC is an almost exact repeat of the way that the preamble to the Iraq war was conducted in 2002 and 2003.
As one study states, “…the BBC is now reflexively boosting the US claim that Iran presents a threat to the West” (Edwards, 2007). As David Edwards’s states in his article entitled Targeting Iran, there is a general implied acceptance in BBC reportage and other media of the “nuclear threat” to the world from Iran — even though such a threat has not been proven and is even denied by some Western experts and authorities.
It is the subtly implied nature and tacit acceptance in the mainstream media of links between Iran and nuclear weapons and between Iran and terrorism that is so dangerous. It is so dangerous because it almost unobtrusively raises assumptions and political rhetoric to the level of accepted fact and reality. It succeeds in germinating the seed of an image in the public consciousness that develops into a general acceptance of unproven opinion, without question or interrogation.
It engenders a view that accepts the prevalent media image of Iran to be the truth simply because it is repeated and stressed so often by the mainstream media. From another perspective, this is nothing less than premeditated media “brainwashing”. This process is further bolstered by other influential public media, including the film and entertainment industry.
The reason for this media campaign to vilify and create a certain presupposed image of Iran is closely allied with the political aims and intentions of certain Western governments. Fortunately, there are a number of outspoken media critics and journalists who are aware of this manipulative process and apparent intentional demonization of Iran.
One of these is the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who has continually exposed and criticized the aims of the Bush Administration in Iran and the Middle East in general. Tellingly, Hersh states that “[t]his is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy.”
This view is common among the more liberal and elite critics of the American Middle East policy. However, the public view of the situation is so clouded and continually diverted by a subjective focus in the media, not on the alleged machinations of the neo-cons and Bush, but rather on reportage that tends to the simplistic view of an evil Iran.
The media coverage therefore emphasizes and underlines the view that it is Iran not the United States or other world powers, that is creating the disaster and mayhem in the region. David Edwards shows how a small but subtle tone shift in media presentation can alter perceptions to conform to certain desired ends.
“Even as the staggering catastrophe that has befallen Iraq continues to be played out, the BBC and other media are yet again preparing the public mind for war. If the public can be convinced that this latest 'threat' is real, then politicians can again unleash their bombers with impunity,” wrote Edwards.
In other words, the media is fine-tuning the message and manipulating public opinion about incipient war and the theorist threat and using every incident and event to create a “spin” that promotes and supports a view of Iran as the evil empire .
Of course, Iran is not without fault. Very much like any other country, it has its share of problems and issues. America too has its human rights issues that form part of the social and political fabric of the country. However, the media has become adept at making it seem that Iran is a country that is almost hideously inhumane toward its citizens and filled to the brim with raging Islamist terrorists.
The press and mainstream journalism are also not exempt from this desire to demonize the country. There are numerous examples from well-known publications that show evidence of this tendency.
For example, in the Guardian newspaper, Polly Toynbee adds her voice to the general chorus of propaganda about Iran. “Now the mad mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear bombs, are we all doomed?…Do something, someone! But what and who?”
There are numerous other examples that may be cited. Another example is from The Times; “The unimaginable but ultimately inescapable truth is that we are going to have to get ready for war with Iran” (Baker, 2006).
Some may argue that these are only opinions, which are acceptable in a free press, yet the problem lies in the tone in which certain views enter mainstream media and are imbibed in the general cultural consciousness. This propaganda becomes a serious issue when these reports relate to the vilification of the alleged enemy in preparation for war. Journalism that ignores the effect of its reportage runs the risk of abusing the power of the media.
Other Media and Iran
| The movie 300 has touched a sensitive nerve, given the current tensions between the U.S. and Iran. |
An interesting and rather disturbing aspect of the way that the media is expanding its attack on Iran is the recent release of the movie 300. While this film is just another slick and computer manipulated piece of Hollywood entertainment, it does have a more suggestive and insidious aspect.
This refers to the depiction of the Persians and the Persian Empire, which creates mental associations with historical Iran. What has enraged many Iranians is the way that the Persians are depicted in the foils. They are shown as decadent monsters, sexuality perverted and downright evil in comparison to the noble and heroic Greeks.
The movie has touched a sensitive nerve, given the current tensions between the United States and Iran. As Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated, the United States tries to “humiliate” Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran.
From this cultural perspective, “the film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people…” (Karimi, 2007).
One has to ask the obvious question, why at a time of heightened tension was a film depicting Iranians in this contrived and insulting way released? One answer to this question is that it is yet another intentional act to create a coherent and simplistic image of the “evil empire” of Iran in the public eye.
Larger Issues Behind Media Bias
The fact of the negative media presentation of Iran cannot seriously be doubted. However, this realization begs a number of questions and opens up a veritable Pandora’s Box of issues and supposition. It is suggested that the reasons for the demonization of Iran are more important than just the realization of this process.
This view is underlined by many journalists and writers. Edward S. Herman, for example, states that “Iran is the next U.S. and Israeli target, so the mainstream U.S. media are once again serving the state agenda by focusing on Iran’s alleged menace and refusing to provide context that would show the menace to be pure Orwell—that is, while Iran is seriously threatened by the U.S. and its aggressively ethnic-cleansing client, Iran only threatens the possibility of self-defense.”
| There are numerous reports that tend to suggest links between political machinations of the media and Iran. |
Herman suggests that, given the track record of the Bush administration, the media should interrogate and explore the political designs behind the rhetoric about Iran, rather than support it. This seems to be a wholly sensible and expected view. Yet, as he and other media critics point out, the media is once again on the bandwagon of political intention and spin. They are allowing themselves “… to be mobilized as agents of propaganda and disinformation.”
This raises the question of deeper culpability, or asking just why this is occurring? One point of view is the usual array of conspiracy theories about the media being controlled by the larger corporations who in turn control the political agenda in the United States. While this view may have sounded somewhat peripheral and fanciful in the past, it has taken on new relevance in light of recent events and the unrelenting media onslaught against Iran.
There are numerous reports from the fringes of journalism which tend to suggest links between political machinations of the media and Iran. The following is just one example of this point of view.
“Dick Cheney has ordered top Neo-Con media outlets, including Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, to unleash a PR blitz to sell a war with Iran from today, according to Barnett Rubin, the highly respected Afghanistan expert at New York University.” According to The New Yorker magazine, Rubin had a conversation with a member of a well-known neoconservative institution in Washington, during which he was told that "‘instructions’ had been passed on from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran” (Watson, 2007).
Another article written in a similar vein states that, “….the U.S. media is controlled and run as a cartel by the Anglo-American establishment. As such, it routinely serves the interest of that establishment, reporting what it wants [reported], and suppressing what it doesn't want reported; or slanting reporting to conceal reality” (Wolfe, 2007).
It would take much more than the present article to fully discuss and evaluate these pertinent theories and allegations. However, what is certain is that the concerted efforts in the media to create a certain image of Iran must be validated by some consensual backing. Signs of increasing efforts to paint Iran as the evil empire raise a great number of questions about the manipulative control and fundamental intentions of the media in the West.
Sources:
Baker, Gerard. Prepare yourself for the unthinkable: war against Iran may be a necessity. TIMESONLINE. 27 January 2006. Last accessed 23 November 2007.
Edwards, David. Targeting Iran . Znet. 21 January 2005. Last accessed 23 November 2007.
Herman, Edward S. Iran’s Dire Threat . Z Features Online. Last accessed 23 November 2007.
Karimi, Nasser. Hollywood declares war on Iran . Associated Press. Last accessed 24 November 2007.
Seymour M. Hersh. The coming wars . The New Yorker. 17 January 2005.
Toynbee, Polly. No more fantasy diplomacy: cut a deal with the mullahs. The Guardian. 7 February 2006.
Watson, Paul. Cheney Orders Media To Sell Attack On Iran . Prison Planet. 4 September 2007. Last accessed 24 November 2007.
Wolfe, Lonnie. Americans Target Of Largest Media Brainwashing Campaign In History . Rense.com. Last accessed 23 November 2007.
Zarif, Mohammad Javad.Tackling the Iran-U.S. Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift . Journal of International Affairs: 60-2 (2007).
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