Dominant Discourse, State Propaganda, and Counter-Narratives in the Iranian Context (2025-2026): A Critical Analysis of Global Media Coverage
Written by: Reza Ashouri
Abstract This essay examines the theoretical and empirical dimensions of state propaganda as practiced by the Islamic Republic of Iran during the 2025–2026 crisis. It integrates foundational theoretical frameworks from media studies, cultural theory, and political economy to analyze how dominant discourse is produced, how global news outlets variously reproduce or resist it, and how audiences can develop critical tools to differentiate propaganda from independent reporting. Drawing on scholarly sources corroborated by reliable news agency investigations, the essay argues that propaganda is a structural phenomenon requiring systematic analytical strategies. Keywords: state propaganda, dominant discourse, counter-narrative, media framing, Islamic Republic of Iran protests Introduction When thousands of Iranians took to the streets on December 28, 2025, the Islamic Republic faced its largest wave of popular unrest since 1979. The regime’s response was swift and lethal. By January 8 and 9, 2026, Iranian security forces, including the IRGC and the Basij militia, unleashed what human rights monitors, eyewitnesses, and independent journalists described as a coordinated massacre. Estimated death tolls ranged from the government’s own figure of 3,117 to independent monitors’estimates of 12,000 to 36,500 civilians killed (Al Jazeera, 2026a; Euronews, 2026). These staggering disparities are not incidental. They are the product of a deliberate and sophisticated information warfare strategy that this essay analyzes through six theoretical frameworks: Stuart Hall (1980), Michel Foucault (1969), Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988), Antonio Gramsci (1971), Robert Entman (1993), and Jacques Ellul (1965/2021). The Architecture of State Propaganda: Theoretical Foundations Power, Knowledge, and the Manufacture of “Truth” Michel Foucault’s concept of power-knowledge provides the most foundational lens for understanding how state propaganda operates, not as the simple telling of lies, but as the structural control over what counts as truth in a given society. For Foucault, discourse is not a neutral reflection of reality; it is a practice that “systematically forms the objects of which it speaks” (as cited in Poorghorban, 2023, p. 3). Whoever controls the dominant discourse controls the boundaries of permissible thought, including what constitutes legitimate protest and what constitutes criminality. This explains why IRIB consistently frames protesters as “rioters,” “saboteurs,” “terrorists,” and agents of Israel and the United States: not because these labels are verifiable, but because they function to place protesters outside the moral universe of the Iranian public, making their killing appear acceptable or necessary (Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2025; Gabbay, 2026). IRIB’s budget was tripled in 2025 to $480 million, enabling global operations across eight international television channels and radio programs broadcast in 32 languages (Foundation…
