Suchergebnisse

Reasons for alleged bias in coverage; implications for foreign policy. Economic, political, practical, ideological, and professional constraints on journalists.

A qualitative analysis of mainstream United States print media begun in Jan 1978 revealed that the United States press portrayed the 1978 Iranian revolution in a highly unsympathetic & culturally biased fashion, which seriously distorted the motives & character of the shah's opposition. The revolt was portrayed as having no legitimate political basis & as being a religious reaction to modernization by a superstitious & benighted people. The repeated emphasis on black robes, beards, veils, turbans, & the supposedly exotic religious etiquette of Islam, linked with such phrases as 'religious fanatic' or 'clerical fascists,' has had serious effects on an American public culturally conditioned to be deeply suspicious of non-Christian religions & of any mixture of church & state. Newspaper & newsmagazine accounts shaded the revolution in such a way as to call into question the very capacity of the Iranian people for civilized political achievement in the absence of a dictator &/or foreign influence, but uncritically repeated the shah's claims about land reform, emancipation of women, & the antidemocratic nature of his foes, despite historical record to the contrary. As a result, most Americans came to view the revolution with suspicion &, oftentimes, open hostility. Modified AA.