In a meeting with members of the Basij, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khamenei, highlighted the need to recognize the methods used by the enemy. He said that the most important thing the enemies do is to distort the truth and tell lies. He also referred to the recent riots in Iran during a meeting with the people of Isfahan and said that the enemy has resorted to “forming fake armies” and “mass producing lies” in its media attacks. In the following interview, Akbar Nasrallahi, assistant professor of Social Sciences, Communications, and the Media, examines the Western media’s approach from different angles.
Question: In the recent riots, the enemy launched an aggressive plot against Iran in which it used all the hard and soft tools it had at its disposal. As a professor in communications, what goals do you think the enemy was pursuing using this media, political, and security attack?
A. Nasrallahi: In the classic literature of communications and the media, there are a series of strategies and tactics that are as old as human existence. Since the beginning of humankind and the start of social life, human beings have used these strategies and tactics to better convey their messages, or in its evil, immoral form, to deviate public opinion and to achieve their goals by violating humanitarian, moral, and religious principles. One of these tactics is the tactic of deceit. This tactic, like the tactic of fear, has been with human beings since the very beginning of human existence and the formation of social life. Even animals use the tactic of creating fear by producing sounds or other reactions so as to protect their territory or to achieve other goals without engaging in a physical conflict. These tactics exist in today’s society as well.
In today’s modern society, many countries and great powers try to dissuade others from pursuing their goals through intimidation, threats, and a series of such measures in order to achieve their own goals without engaging in direct conflicts and without paying the hard, physical costs. The tactic of using deceit is one of the very old tactics that has always been with humankind and has been used in social life. Since the establishment of modern-era media outlets, not only have the tactics of deceit, rumors spreading, and intimidation not disappeared, but the scope and intensity of their lies have increased. The types of actions they use and their meanings have changed in such a way that according to the Leader of the Revolution we are dealing with the “formation of fake armies and a mass production of lies” in today’s societies.
Lying in its new sense is not limited to an untrue remark. Some remarks might even be true, but at the same time, they may be only a part of the truth. Today, new media outlets as well as political, economic, social, and religious activists emphasize and magnify only a part of the truth in such a way that the whole truth is not seen or is lost completely. Therefore, lying, in my opinion, is any act or behavior that causes the truth to be distorted and the audience to think that a part of the truth is the entire truth instead of them realizing the truth as it is.
In recent events, Western and Persian-language media outlets have focused on a part of the truth about Iran and a part of the protests and grievances. They depict them as if the whole country is busy dealing with these events and there are conflicts everywhere in the country. However, the truth is that, following the bitter death of a young girl, there were some protests, which is the right of every person and is recognized in the Constitution.
But the enemy did not sit idly since it was looking for an opportunity. Because what is expected from an enemy is enmity. That is, it is not strange and unnatural for the enemy to show its enmity. What is strange is that the protests turned into riots and attacks on the entire government and all the governing institutions in a very short time. Protests are natural, but turning protests into riots in a short time and attributing a problem to the entire government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is unnatural. The enemy reshapes and broadcasts these protests and riots in a way that anyone watching these media outlets and social media networks would think there is conflict and violence going on all over Iran. But this is not the truth.
Question: So to put it more precisely, the enemy’s media outlets reshaped the truth in a way that the general public would have a different understanding of the truth — an understanding that is far from reality. Is this the case?
A. Nasrallahi: Yes, these protests are reshaped and reported in the foreign-based Persian-language media outlets and the social media networks affiliated with them to the extent that one would think the entire city of Tehran, with its several-million population, is filled with protests, violence, war, conflicts, and corpses. This means a mass production of lies. In their false narratives, these TV channels and social media networks give the audience the impression that the Islamic Republic of Iran is on the verge of collapsing every hour and every moment, and the officials are being changed. This narrative is false, and it does not conform to reason and external evidence.
In the new way of lying, unlike the previous way, facts are not directly denied, and lying is any action and behavior through which a part of the truth of what is happening in the country is reflected in an immense, untruthful, repetitive way that causes people to come to the conclusion that a part of the truth is the whole truth. The truth is that this crisis will end with the capability of the Islamic Republic and the vigilance of the people, but the mental and psychological impact of this mass of lies will remain on society and people’s morals. Three years of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, the continuation of oppressive sanctions by the United States, the effects of some mismanagement by the previous administration, and now this massive lying of hostile media outlets and the social media networks affiliated with them have inflicted psychological harm upon the society.
Question: What is your assessment of the level of coordination in the media in these events?
A. Nasrallahi: Since the emergence of mass media, we have never seen all the enemies, their capabilities, and all their tactics being focused on one country and one issue for such a long period. In fact, we are witnessing an unprecedented cooperation between them from both inside and outside the country in the ongoing riots. The same is true regarding the television and satellite media outlets. For example, [Iran] International, BBC [Persian], and Manoto have the same basic objectives and strategies regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran and its people. I believe that International and Manoto are reproductions of BBC. Despite their tactical differences, they all continuously work together as a collaborative army. We don’t see the slightest evidence showing that these media outlets are not coordinated or have serious differences in their ultimate goal of countering Iran. This means a massive media campaign or a tsunami of lies, false information, distortion, and mass dictatorship. In fact, we are witnessing an all-out media dictatorship. That is, despite the variety of enemy media outlets with different names, we are facing a single dictatorship.
They do not officially recognize any voice other than their own. And they create a circle of silence with their mass media campaigns, tsunami of lies, mass production of lies, and bombardment of misinformation and distortions. They have even extended this circle of silence to the sphere of the elite. Through this mass media campaign, repetition of lies, distortion of the truth, bombardment of misinformation, highlighting negative events, and denying the facts, they have created a situation in which the audience — those who have pages or platforms on social media networks, such as university professors, artists etc. — either remain silent or approve of their lies. This is a circle of silence. The pressure of modern dictators and the selfish media army is so great that people must either remain silent or accept their erroneous point of view.
They are not even satisfied with silence or receiving approval for their own opinions. They say that different activists must not remain silent or just approve of their words. Rather, they should first insult the government, and only then will they be accepted, confirmed, and supported by them.
Therefore, this mass media army, with its tsunami of lies and bombardment of misinformation, first managed to extend the circle of silence to the elite and even supporters of the government. Second, after forcing them to conform to the circle of silence, they began to accuse those who had remained silent of being disgraceful.
On university campuses, a student calls his professor “disgraceful” for not speaking and approving of his opinion. This is dictatorship. Despite accusing others of being dictators, they themselves practice dictatorship every single day. While calling themselves women’s rights advocates — and even though they have exploited women’s rights as an excuse to start street riots and have kept the country simmering with unrest for about three months — they chant sexist slogans that are offensive to women.
During the President’s recent trip to the Kordestan Province, the dictators who claim to champion “life” and “freedom” threatened and forced a shopkeeper in the city of Sanandaj to apologize. The crime of the shopkeeper was that he had offered chocolates to the President when he visited the Kordestan market, which was falsely announced to be closed due to strikes. These cases are actually examples of this era’s strange phenomena and dictatorship.
Question: What should be done next to contain and control this atmosphere and neutralize the negative effects?
A. Nasrallahi: In order to deal with the mass production of lies, massive media campaigns, and formation of fake armies against the people of Iran, first the nature of these protests and riots must be examined and analyzed. In my opinion, this crisis, which started in the month of Shahrivar (September) with the death of a young girl has all characteristics of the previous crises but with a greater intensity and scope. Of course, as I said, with their resilience, high capacity, and experience, the people and the officials will undoubtedly be able to manage this crisis as well and turn it into an opportunity.
Second, this crisis has different political, economic, social, cultural, domestic, and media aspects. We should not forget the diverse, numerous causes of the current protests and riots, including the defects in the communication system, media networks, and an insufficient utilization of the elites’ capabilities. While having been led and managed from abroad, this crisis definitely has economic, political, and social roots as well. But most of these events are the result of a media crisis. For this reason, a large part of what is reshaped and broadcasted about the events in Iran these days, and what is actually happening on the ground, are poles apart.
Third, when we accept that this crisis is mostly related to the media, the strategies and solutions used to deal with it should also be more related to the media. All signs and evidence show that in order to prevent the move toward a strong Iran, the enemies have placed on their agenda the strategy of continuing violence; developing and intensifying taboo slogans; changing the field of protests and riots from the streets to universities and cultural centers; disrupting markets, businesses, and commerce; making the police force and authorities tired and angry; and creating and finding fake topics.
If responsible people and activists want to counter these strategies, they should adopt counterstrategies. So it seems that in order to prevent the realization of the enemies’ strategies, to turn the existing crisis into an opportunity, to escape from the propaganda siege, to deal with the movement of distortion, to raise the awareness of the defenseless public, and to prevent the assault of the Western media, it is necessary to put strategies such as telling the truth; the struggle for clarification; reconstruction in the fields of culture, media, and the economy; improving the media literacy of officials, media outlets, and people; reforming the defective communication system; pursuing proactive and active strategies; offering the first narrative; being patient and resistant; calming; normalizing; persuading; and trying to persuade and integrate people with different opinions on the agenda of different departments, especially on the agenda of media outlets, academics, and officials. These strategies must be worked on along with reconstruction in economic spheres, using the elites’ capacities, involving the people to a maximum extent, and using internal capacities.
(The views expressed in this interview are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
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