Successive Iranian leaders have struggled to navigate the fraught political-cultural space of media in the Islamic Republic–skirting the line between embracing Western communications technologies and rejecting them, between condemning social networking sites as foreign treachery and promoting themselves on Facebook. How does a regime that originally derived its hegemony from the ability to mass communicate its ideology protect its ideological dominance in a media environment defined by hybridity, hyper-connectivity, and near constant change? More broadly, what is the role of media in the construction and maintenance of power in Iran?This book addresses these questions by examining the institutions, policies, and discourses of two political regimes over the course of nearly eight decades. Drawing from over 3,000 primary source documents and digital artifacts in Persian and English, including formerly classified material hidden deep in the archives, this book offers a history of media in Iran across political regimes and media paradigms– from the public's first encounter with mass communication in the 1940s, to the dawn of digital media in the 1990s, to internet and mobile telephony today.At the same time, the book trains a keen eye on contemporary politics. With foundations in sociology and political science, Media and Power in Modern Iran offers trenchant insight into the present ruling establishment– a political regime born from what has become known as the "first televised revolution."
Emily L. Blout is a historian and media scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in Iranian Studies from the University of St. Andrews, UK and a M.A. in International Security Studies from the National Defence University in Washington, D.C, USA.
IntroductionPart I: Pahlavi and the Making of the Mass Communications System 1. The Birth of the Mass Communication Monopoly2. Mass Communication and Regime BuildingPart II: A Different Sort of War: The Crisis of Satellite TV3. Prelude to a Crisis4. The Crisis of Satellite TV5. The Big Dish: DBS, Symbolism, and the Politics of CulturePart III: Soft War: The Politics of the Internet6. The Origins and Development of the Internet in Iran7. The Internet in the Crisis of 20098. Soft War and the '88 Fitnah 9. The National InternetConclusion
