Iran and the American Media: Press Coverage of the ‘Iran Deal’ in Context 3030748995, 9783030748999

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Iran and the American Media Press Coverage of the ‘Iran Deal’ in Context Mehdi Semati William P. Cassidy Mehrnaz Khanjani

Iran and the American Media “Iran and the American Media offers a nuanced look at patterns of media coverage before and after the signing of the Iran nuclear deal. The analysis reveals the complex interplay of news sources in a landmark multilateral foreign policy situation.” —Lance Bennett, Professor, Political Science and Communication, and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Journalism, Media & Democracy, University of Washington, USA

Mehdi Semati • William P. Cassidy Mehrnaz Khanjani

Iran and the American Media Press Coverage of the ‘Iran Deal’ in Context

Mehdi Semati Department of Communication Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL, USA

William P. Cassidy Department of Communication Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL, USA

Mehrnaz Khanjani School of Journalism & Mass Communication University of Iowa Iowa City, IA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-74899-9    ISBN 978-3-030-74900-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74900-2 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

We dedicate this book to those who advance the cause of diplomacy.

Contents

1 The Iran Deal in Context: American Press Coverage of Iran from Coup to the Islamic Republic  1 2 Theoretical Framework: Media Sociology, Indexing, Source Usage, and Framing 25 3 Who Speaks in the Coverage of the Iran Deal in The New York Times and The Washington Post 49 4 Who Speaks in the Broadcast News Coverage of the Iran Deal 81 5 Iran in the American Cultural and Political Imagination109 Index135

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List of Tables

Table 3.1

Frequency of evaluative statements by source in news stories (N = 2978)54 Table 3.2 Frequency of evaluative statements by the top 12 overall source types by time period in news stories 55 Table 3.3 Percentage of evaluative statements by governmental sources by time period in news stories 56 Table 3.4 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by time period in news stories 57 Table 3.5 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by source type in news stories 58 Table 3.6 Positive evaluative statement valence comparisons for top five US governmental and leading nongovernmental source types in news stories 59 Table 3.7 Frequency of evaluative statements by sources in op-ed stories (N = 412)63 Table 3.8 Frequency of evaluative statements by the top 12 overall source types by time period in op-ed stories 64 Table 3.9 Percentage of evaluative statements by governmental sources by time period in op-ed stories 65 Table 3.10 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by sources by time period in op-ed stories 66 Table 3.11 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by op-ed authors by time period 66 Table 3.12 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by source type in op-ed stories 67

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Table 3.13 Positive evaluative statement valence comparisons for the top five US governmental and leading nongovernmental source types by time period in op-ed stories 68 Table 4.1 Frequency of evaluative statements by source (23 categories) (N = 1019)92 Table 4.2 Frequency of evaluative statements by source (11 categories) (N = 1019)93 Table 4.3 Frequency of evaluative statements by source in each time period94 Table 4.4 Valence distribution of evaluative statements in each time period95 Table 4.5 Valence distribution of evaluative statements by source type 96

CHAPTER 1

The Iran Deal in Context: American Press Coverage of Iran from Coup to the Islamic Republic

Abstract  This chapter presents the timeline of the development of both the nuclear program in Iran and the agreement known as the “Iran deal.” It provides a brief history of the press coverage of Iran beginning with the 1953 Anglo-American coup d’état that removed Mosaddeq, a democratically elected prime minister, leading to the coverage of the Iran Deal. The political transformation of Iran from a staunch “ally” of the United States to an “enemy” allows for a study of how the changing US-Iran relations affect Iran’s coverage. It argues that while Mosaddeq was labeled a dictator, the Shah was portrayed as a “modernizer.” Additionally, the opposition to the Shah was explained exclusively in religious terms conveniently neglecting the social and political roots of the Iranian Revolution. Keywords  Iran • Mohammad Mosaddeq • Iranian Revolution • The Shah • Islam • Iran deal • JCPOA • Iranian nuclear program • News Nearly six years after the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of powerful countries signed a nuclear agreement with great fanfare, the Iran nuclear deal is back in the headlines in June 2021. The administration of President Joe Biden is trying to revive an agreement that was essentially sabotaged by the previous administration of Donald Trump, an agreement that had been conceived by yet another previous American administration, that of President Barack Obama. A group of Republican senators have just © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Semati et al., Iran and the American Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74900-2_1

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introduced a Bill that would demand President Biden to seek congressional authorization to secure any new diplomatic agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program. The news about this bill comes a day after it was announced the United States lifts some sanctions on the Islamic Iran as a conciliatory gesture that would encourage Iranians to participate in yet another round of meetings to address Iran’s nuclear program. Only a few days before this move, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who appears to be on the verge of losing his job, warned that he is prepared to “risk friction” with the United States if the Iran nuclear deal is reinstated. It appears that Mr. Netanyahu is promising to do to President Biden what he did to President Obama with the help of congressional Republicans in their opposition to diplomacy with Iran. Meanwhile the administration of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has been relentlessly criticized and undermined for his championing of the nuclear deal and for trusting Americans with their promise of sanction relief and with honoring their commitments. America’s abandoning of the nuclear deal has meant a crushing blow to the political standing of the reformers in Iran. While it is reasonable to read these developments as symptoms of dysfunctional politics, politicians, and institutions, we offer them more as examples of how successive American administrations have come to recognize Iran as a significant player and an unavoidable foreign policy challenge. It is also tempting to interpret these developments as a sign of intractable and enduring geopolitical conflicts that resist resolution or rational calculations. However, as a critical scrutiny of any attempts at characterization of these developments or the Islamic Republic of Iran makes clear, discourses about Iran are grounded in certain persistent and predictable, even if contradictory, views and perceptions. On the one hand, for example, Iran is characterized as a fundamentalist nation ruled by backward religious fanatics. On the other, these rulers have nevertheless been able to lead Iran to develop advanced ballistic missile capabilities and even more advanced nuclear technologies. Iran is said to be brutally ruled and its people subjected to harsh “Islamic” and repressive measures. At the same time, we witness in Iran a certain undeniable cultural flourishing in film, literature, music, theater, art, and education. An objective understanding of Iran entails interrogating the prevailing perceptions and discourses that constitute it as an object of geopolitical and journalistic deliberations. This book is an effort to contribute to such an interrogation. The media coverage of the nuclear negotiations with Iran provides us

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an opportunity to study how perceptions and views about Iran come into being. The research on which this book is based has both empirical and interpretive components. The immediate subject of our study in this book is an empirical investigation of the American media coverage of the historic nuclear accord between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. By media coverage we mean the journalistic work of “prestige print media” in the news coverage and in the op-ed sections of The New York Times and The Washington Post and in the broadcast news coverage of the nuclear agreement, commonly referred to as the “Iran Deal.” The empirical component of the research is placed within two broader contexts. First, it is placed with the broader historical context of the journalistic coverage that precedes the nuclear agreement. This is the task of the first chapter. In order to provide a broader perspective for understanding today’s media coverage of Iran, the chapter provides an account of Iran’s treatment as a subject of political and journalistic deliberations beginning in the 1950s leading up to the coverage of the Iran Deal. Second, the journalistic coverage is placed within a broader interpretive framework through which Iran, its political system of the Islamic Republic, and Iranians are constructed as intelligible subjects of journalistic and geopolitical discourses. In other words, we delineate the broader interpretive framework through which audiences make sense of Iran and the geopolitical world. This is the objective of the last chapter where we argue the interpretive resources which contribute to the construction of such a framework come from a much wider range of discursive materials that includes, among others, works of fiction and entertainment. Therefore, Chaps. 1 and 5 frame the empirical component of our research, presented in Chaps. 3 and 4, a framing which we hope broadens the horizon within which our empirical findings could be appreciated. Through this framing, while the first chapter historicizes the journalistic coverage of the Iran Deal, the last chapter examines the broader interpretive cultural framework that makes sense of Iran and Iranians. For the empirical component of the book, we conducted analyses of the coverage of the Iran Deal in the news reporting and in the op-ed coverage of The New  York Times and The Washington Post (Chap. 3), and in the broadcast news coverage of the nuclear agreement (Chap. 4). The analysis is guided by a specific set of methodological and theoretical tools. Using quantitative content analysis, we employ indexing hypothesis and cascading activation model as our theoretical resources that guide the research.

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The choice of indexing is motivated by two specific considerations. First, indexing hypothesis is often used in the analysis of media and foreign policy. Second, this choice allows us to study the media-state relationship, which has been one of the founding questions in international communication, including international news media analysis. The literature from which we draw this set of theoretical tools is based in political communication and sociology of media and journalism studies. This literature is introduced in Chap. 2. In this chapter, first, we present a timeline of the development of the nuclear program in Iran as a way to underscore the significance of the Iran Deal and to historicize its emergence. In the second section we present a brief discussion of Iran and the American press by examining the press coverage of Iran by focusing on the two major flashpoints in the contemporary history of Iran as they relate to Iran-US relations: the 1953 Anglo-­ American coup d’état that removed Mohammad Mosaddeq, a democratically elected popular Iranian Prime Minister; and the post-Mosaddeq era, leading to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and its immediate aftermath. With the coup Iran was transformed into a client state and an ally of the United States, as Iran became an important strategic ally. A quarter of a century later, with the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran entered into an adversarial relationship with the United States. In the third section, we discuss the press coverage of Iran in the post-revolution period leading to the coverage of the Iran Deal. The Iran Deal represents (as it still does at the time of this writing) the potential of a breakthrough in taking steps toward overcoming that adversarial relationship. In the final chapter we return to a discussion of the larger interpretive framework beyond the press coverage of the Iran Deal. Delineating such an interpretive framework entails a detailed explanation of the representation of Iran in American popular culture in the post-­ revolution period. One of the book’s objectives is to reveal the place Iran occupies in the American political and cultural imagination.

A Brief History of Iran’s Nuclear Program and the “Iran Deal” What is commonly referred to as the “Iran Deal” is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It is a nuclear agreement between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and

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Germany, along with the European Union. The group is often referred to as P5 + 1, meaning the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, plus Germany. JCPOA was considered a historic achievement and a diplomatic breakthrough in that it broke a stalemate in negotiations and in brining Iran to the negotiating table and in dialogue with the world powers (Parsi, 2017). In order to underscore the significance of the agreement and appreciate the complexity of the subject of Iranian nuclear program, here we offer a brief narrative of its historical trajectory and development.1 The origins of Iran’s nuclear consciousness might be found in President Eisenhower’s “Atom for Peace” program, which was announced on December 8, 1953, in a speech at the UN General Assembly (Homayounvash, 2016). Iran’s nuclear program, under Eisenhower’s initiative, was launched in 1957 with the help of the United States as an “agreement for cooperation in research in the peaceful uses of atomic energy” (Mousavian, 2014, pp.  177–178). The civil nuclear agreement entailed the United States providing Iran with technical assistance and some enriched uranium for research on the peaceful application of nuclear energy. Such a cooperation at the time meant that both the United States and Iran met specific strategic objectives. In the context of the Cold War, alliance with the Shah of Iran meant Iran remained within the sphere of influence of the United States and not that of the Soviet Union. For the Shah, who “was struggling to create modern foundations to assert domestic authority and redefine its regional and international identity following a cascade of strategically bruising experiences” (Homayounvash, 2016, p.  1), the cooperation was an important strategic investment toward becoming a regional powerhouse. The alliance of Iran and the United States and the support of successive American administrations for the Shah of Iran would continue until he fled Iran in the days leading to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. With the assistance from the United States, Iran built its first nuclear reactor in 1967. The following year Iran signed the Nuclear Non-­ proliferation Treaty (NPT), leading the Iranian parliament to ratify the NPT in 1970. The government of Iran established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in 1974. In the mid-1970s the cooperation between Iran and the United States continued, including a meeting of the US-Iran Joint Commission in Washington DC in March 1975. With the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in the immediate aftermath of the

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Iranian Revolution, all diplomatic ties and cooperation, including Iranian nuclear energy projects, were terminated. In the middle of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the first wave of extensive sanctions against Iran was launched in 1984 as the US Department of State added Iran to its list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” In violation of previously imposed arms embargoes, the Reagan administration was caught selling weapons to Iran in 1985, which led to the Iran-­ Contra Affairs scandal. Iran and Pakistan signed an agreement to send engineers from Iran to Pakistan for training in nuclear technology in 1987. During the same year Iran received technical information to build a certain type of centrifuge from the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear physicist who is believed to be responsible for Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. In August 2002, the political branch of a terrorist organization known as Mujahenin-e Khalgh (MEK) claimed the Islamic Republic of Iran was building nuclear facilities in two locations (Natanz and Arak). In 2003 Mohamed ElBaradei, International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) chief, and his team of inspectors visited both sites. IAEA issued a report indicating Iran was not in compliance with respect to its obligation under the terms of the NPT. IAEA later reported that its inspectors had found weapons-grade enriched uranium at a different site. In 2004, IAEA notified Iran that it must suspend its uranium enrichment activities. Later in the year Iran agreed to suspend all nuclear fuel processing activities. However, in 2005 Iran insisted that the country will not abandon nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment, for research and civilian purposes, and resumed uranium enrichment. Following the collapse of negotiations with Europe, Iran resumed uranium enrichment in Natanz and opened a heavy-water reactor in 2006. In December 2006 the UN Security Council imposed its first round of sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear activities. In 2008 the UN Security Council passed a resolution (1803) introducing sanctions that were broader in scope, preventing member states from selling technologies that might have the potential to be used in nuclear or missile programs. In June 2008, Iran was presented with a proposal from P5 + 1 as an updated incentive package that had been proposed two years earlier. After Barack Obama assumed the presidency, his administration announced in 2009 that the United States was willing to join P5 + 1 in direct talks with Iran. A few months later, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election with a bloody

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aftermath. While Iran continued its nuclear activities, additional sanctions targeted Iran, including a 2012 decision by the European Union to forbid its member states from importing oil from Iran. Between 2012 and 2013 Iran and P5 + 1 met a few times. Hassan Rouhani was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 14, 2013. Within days of his inauguration, President Rouhani called for return to stalled negotiations between Iran and P5 + 1 to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. In September 2013, John Kerry, the secretary of state of the United States, and Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, met in person to discuss future negotiations. More importantly, President Obama placed a phone call to President Rouhani, making it the first contact between the leaders of the two nations since the revolution of 1979. These steps launched a new hopeful era of cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States. In November 2013, the foreign ministers from P5 + 1, their negotiating team, and the Iranian negotiators reached an interim agreement, known as the “Joint Plan of Action.” Iran agreed to some limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for some sanction relief. The Islamic Republic of Iran and P5 + 1 reached a historic accord after 20 months of negotiations on July 14, 2015. The agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), colloquially referred to as the “Iran Deal,” ended a decade-long confrontation between Iran and the world powers regarding its nuclear program. The agreement had the potential to reintegrate Iran into the global economy and the international system. Both President Rouhani and President Obama had to contend with oppositional voices who wished to scuttle the agreement. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution unanimously to endorse the nuclear agreement a week later. In October 2015, the Iran Deal was formally adopted by the Islamic Republic of Iran and P5 + 1. The European Union stated it had taken steps to legalize the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran beginning the implementation date. Similarly, the United States announced it would issue waivers on nuclear-related sanctions to take effect on the implementation day. Iran and the P5 + 1 formally adopted the nuclear deal. Iran began taking steps to restrict its nuclear program. The United States issued waivers on nuclear-related sanctions to come into effect on the implementation day. The EU announced it passed legislation to lift nuclear-related sanctions on the implementation day. On January 11, 2016, Iran started to roll back some of its sensitive nuclear activities (e.g., disabling the Arak reactor core). Five days later, on

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January 16, 2016, the IAEA announced Iran had met its obligations, leading Iranian foreign minister and Federica Mogherini, representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice-president of the European Commission, to announce the implementation day is in effect. The UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing the agreement, a step that triggered the lifting of UN sanctions. It should be pointed out that mere two months later the presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), promising his “number one priority” would be dismantling “the disastrous deal with Iran.” President Trump made good on his promise when he announced on May 18, 2018, to the dismay of American allies, that the United States was withdrawing from the Iran Deal. The United States effectively began its campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran, and a return to what is perhaps the status quo of the pre-Obama era, which is a default setting of enmity with the Islamic Republic of Iran. While analyzing the maximum pressure campaign is beyond the scope of our research, it is worth pointing out that the Trump administration allegedly intended to force Iran to negotiate a “better deal,” one that would be much broader in scope to include Iran’s conventional military ballistic missile program and Iran’s regional role and alliances. Since it is difficult to believe Iran would ever accept such conditions, the campaign was arguably designed by the Trump administration to frustrate feasible diplomatic solutions. What the maximum pressure campaign has clearly achieved in Iran is emboldening hardliners and undermining moderates and those who believe in finding a diplomatic solution. Moreover, as the literature on the effects of sanctions makes clear, it is the ordinary citizens that are hurt, and not their rulers. Some have referred to the maximum pressure campaign as “economic terrorism.” In the final analysis, the maximum pressure campaign is a form of violence on an entire population, one that has continued during a raging pandemic.

A Brief History of Iran and the American Journalism As far as news media and journalism are concerned, perception and knowledge about another country are a function of how and when the press covers that country in what it deems to be newsworthy according to the prevailing “news values” of the press.2 Additionally, that knowledge is a product of how the relations between the two countries are expressed in

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political deliberations as articulated and framed by journalistic discourses and practices. One important step in understanding perception and knowledge about another country is to trace major political milestones and the trajectory of the relations between these nations as the entry points for journalistic outputs, which are constructed according to their professional codes and practices that make up a journalist’s work. In order to understand today’s media coverage of Iran, we offer an account of Iran’s treatment as a subject of journalistic deliberations beginning in the 1950s. This discussion provides a larger historical context for our discussion of the press coverage of the Iran Deal. Although Iran was never colonized, during World War II, the British and the Soviet Union forces invaded and occupied western Iran in August 1941, with the United States joining them later in December of the same year. While it is sometimes claimed the invasion was meant to prevent Nazi Germany from influencing Iran, many historians note that the invasion was motivated by the desire to control Iranian oil fields and for Iran’s geographic proximity to the Soviet Union (Abrahamian, 2008; Axworthy, 2008). In April 1951, Mohammad Mosaddeq was elected prime minister of Iran. He swiftly nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in order to wrest the control of Iranian oil and its riches from Anglo-American hands, frustrating the British and the Americans. In mere two years Mosaddeq was removed from office through a coup d’état orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States with the help from MI6, the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom. Iranians of various political persuasions consider this coup an unforgivable original sin committed by the United States. Ervand Abrahamian (2013), a historian of Iran, has argued that much of the hostility between Iran and the United States “is rooted in the 1953 coup in which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the highly popular government of Muhammad Mosaddeq and thus laid the groundwork for the establishment of the autocratic rule of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi” (p. 18). The coup essentially ushered in a US-friendly monarchy that remained a staunch ally of the United States until the Iranian Revolution toppled it in February 1979. While the coup of 1953 launched an autocratic regime staunchly loyal to the United States, the Iranian Revolution turned Iranian state into its “sworn enemy.” In some respects, the two periods of post-­ coup (1953–1979) and post-revolution (1979–present) present a unique context for comparing the press coverage of the same country as an ally of the United States (Iran during the Shah’s reign) and an adversary of the

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United States (Iran as the Islamic Republic). The only major study of the American press coverage of Iran between the 1953 coup and the 1979 revolution is a book-length examination of the topic by William Dorman and Mansour Farhang, entitled The U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference (1987). The reference to foreign policy in the title of the book makes it clear that to a large extent the press coverage of another nation tends to revolve around questions of foreign policy. The book starts and closes with the press coverage of two watershed moments in the contemporary history of Iran: the 1953 coup that removed Mosaddeq and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In between these two moments, Dorman and Farhang explore how the Shah’s regime as a US ally was covered by the mainstream print press in the United States. Dorman and Farhang (1987) set out to study “what the American public was told about Iran by the press during a close association between the two countries which lasted fully one-quarter of a century” (p. 12). Their standard for the performance of the press in their coverage of Iran was “based on a comparison of what the press said was going on with what was reasonably known at the time” (p.  12, emphasis in original). They argue this is a fair standard because it transcends partisan views, and it is a reasonable expectation since it is nothing beyond what the press claimed it was doing already. Apart from questions of objectivity, bias, and expertise, Dorman and Farhang wanted to know if journalists maintained their independence from the foreign policy establishment. In their discussion of the American press coverage of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Dorman and Farhang (1987) state that the press “followed the lead of Washington and opted for simple themes that matched Western conceptions of the Middle East peoples and neatly fit within the context of the cold war” (p. 33). Over a two-year period, the representation of Mosaddeq “would change from that of a quaint nationalist to that of near lunatic to one, finally, of Communist dupe” (p. 34). One of the themes of the coverage was that countries in the Middle East without the interference of Western powers would disintegrate and that Iran was depicted “as a country incapable of self-rule and in need of Westernized guardian” (p. 38). Additionally, the press coverage worked by omission to distort the realities of Iran. In covering the economic fallout from efforts at nationalization to protect Iran’s natural resources, the press portrayed Iran “as a backward sort of place held under the sway of a petulant and decidedly odd old man, whose Anglophobia would prove to be the ruination of the country” (pp. 38–39). What the coverage neglected to highlight was that

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Iranian “Anglophobia” was not irrational and that Iranians had good reasons for their resentment (plundering Iranian oil by Great Britain). Similarly, the press neglected to mention that the worsening economic conditions of Iran reported by the press was not the result of the nationalization of the oil industry but the result of a highly effective boycott of Iranian oil spearheaded by Britain (pp.  39–40). It took the mainstream American media a while before they would even acknowledge the role the United States had played in the coup. For the mainstream press, Dorman and Farhang (1987) argued, “the coup was seen an internal matter brought about by widespread dissatisfaction with the ineptitude of Mosaddeq” and not the direct involvement of the American CIA (p. 47). The reality of who Mosaddeq was or what his motivations were is far from such distorted views. Nikki Keddie, a historian of Iran, has characterized Mosaddeq as “a high-born Western-trained liberal nationalist intellectual” (Keddie, 2003, p. 88) who was portrayed in both Britain and the United States “increasingly but inaccurately as a dangerous fanatic, likely to deliver Iran to the Soviets. In fact, he was an anti-imperialist nationalist who intended to keep Iran from being controlled by any foreign country or company” (p. 125). Dr. Mosaddeq, as he is known in Iran, remains a symbol of Iranian aspiration for independence and democratic rule.3 Although Dorman and Farhang (1987) raised these various issues with the work of journalists in the mainstream press, they wished to explain the performance of the press beyond the “individual culpability” toward “ideo-professional osmosis” that “can be as effective as conspiracy in producing uncritical press,” and toward a “systemic” view of journalism in foreign policy arena (p. 62). In other words, they made it clear they do not suggest any conspiratorial design was at play. It is noteworthy that another professional historian of Iran endorsed Dorman and Farhang’s analysis of the shortcomings of the press in terms of how the press covered Mosaddeq and the 1953 coup (Abrahamian, 1988).4 In the immediate post-coup era when the Shah consolidated his rule, the mainstream press in the United States depicted the Shah positively as a “modernizer” of Iran, a nation that no longer had a “fanatical demagogue” in the person of Mosaddeq at the helm. Many of the prevailing assumptions about the Shah and the nature of his rule that would last all the way to the time of the revolution took roots during this period. That meant the press seemed incapable of addressing the harsh realities of his repressive regime. The press followed the Kennedy administration’s view and only became moderately critical of some aspects of the Shah’s policies

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when the Kennedy administration raised criticism. The occasional stories about corruption and the need for reform notwithstanding, Dorman and Farhang (1987) argued that during this period the press failed to provide a more comprehensive picture of the Shah’s rule and the Iranian society, which allowed the foreign policy establishment to define the Shah and the reality of his rule for the public. In response to the internal political challenges and in order to silence his critics in Iran, the Shah launched a major reform program in the early 1960s, entitled the “White Revolution” (Amanat, 2017; Keddie, 2003). The program became, according to Dorman and Farhang (1987), “the central myth of the Pahlavi regime on which American press coverage largely rested” (p.  82). Although the Shah’s program was mostly motivated by political considerations, the mainstream American press portrayed him as a champion of reform and “modernization,” a “reform-minded monarch.” It is remarkable that while Mosaddeq was often referred to as a “dictator” in his short time as prime minister, the label was used for the Shah only four times during his entire reign from 1953 to 1978 (Abrahamian, 1988, p.  48; Dorman & Farhang, 1987, p. 99). At the same time, oppositions to him were portrayed as a revolt of “tradition” against modernization, or as “cultural reaction” against “progress” (Dorman & Farhang, 1987, pp.  82–89). Moreover, even though Iranians had been active in their quest for a more democratic political system since the constitutional revolution (1905–1911), the opposition to the Shah’s programs was increasingly portrayed exclusively in religious terms. To the extent that the Shah was viewed as the ruler of a client state (i.e., an “ally”), as it was generally understood, it is not entirely difficult to see why he was given the benefit of doubt about his motivations, or about the opposition to his rule, an opposition which was often questioned or dismissed. As Dorman and Farhang (1987) observed, it is helpful here to compare the left-leaning public’s reaction to the revolutionary forces in two different contexts: the Shah in Iran and the oppositional voices to his rule, and Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and the oppositional voices to his rule. These were happening at about the same time. While the Shah was often referred to as merely “autocratic,” Somoza of Nicaragua was always described as a “dictator.” While the Shah was depicted as a reform-­ minded voice of modernization, Somoza was never depicted as anything but a dictator (Dorman & Farhang, 1987, p. 99). The favorable coverage of the Shah and the discrediting of the oppositional voices in Iran as

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religious fanatics or reactionaries meant there was never going to be any sympathy for oppositional voices in Iran in the minds of the public in the United States.5 It is also noteworthy that the Shah received a harsher criticism from the American press for his opulent and extravagant spending than for his repressive rule and his frightening secret police. The infamous 2500th anniversary celebration of the Persian monarchy in Persepolis in October 1971 received much coverage for its lavish and excessive budget and the display of ostentatious self-indulgence. By the 1970s it was firmly established that Iran was an ally of the United States regardless of the Shah’s conduct. Furthermore, and especially as Iran and the Shah are positioned as strategic assets in the Cold War posture of the United States in its foreign policy (i.e., the threat of the Soviet Union),6 Iran is depicted as “an island of stability” in the otherwise unstable Middle East and the oil-rich region of the Persian Gulf. As Alexander Moens (1991) put it, in his visit to Iran during December 1977, President Jimmy Carter “praised the shah as an ‘island of stability’ in a troubled region and refused to meet with the opposition group” (p. 215). The most troubling aspect of the American press coverage of Iran in the late 1970s was that of the coverage of the Iranian Revolution, its causes, and the sociopolitical contexts that made up the conditions of its possibility. As Dorman and Farhang (1987) demonstrated, there is a range of shortcomings in the way the American news media covered the Iranian Revolution. These shortcomings might explain why the Iranian Revolution was, in the language of Charles Kurzman (2004), “unthinkable” for the Americans. The press failed to understand and inform its readers the scope of the discontent with the Shah, and often dismissed the voices of discontent as nothing more than fanaticism. The press never adequately addressed the “why” question (why these masses were in revolt against the Shah) or the significance of the large-scale opposition to the Shah’s rule. The popularity of the revolution and its appeal across different social classes were never properly understood by the press because American journalists insisted the opposition was limited. Moreover, the opposition to the Shah was essentially articulated in religious terms or in terms of religious and Shiite culture of Iranians. As Michael Fischer (1980) has argued, the “causes of the revolution, and its timing, were economic and political; the form of the revolution, and its pacing, owed much to the tradition of religious protest” (p. 190).7

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All oppositional forces to the Shah, regardless of their political or ideological orientations, tended to be reduced to religious protest, even though religious forms of protest in Iran have always happened in specific social and political contexts. As Dorman and Farhang (1987) pointed out, “the press confused the religious idiom of the revolution with wholly sectarian motives and gave currency to the theme that religious reaction and not quest for participation and equity explained events in troubled Iran” (p.  155). Interpreting politics exclusively in religious terms means the politics of the events in question are never understood or properly addressed. Additionally, such an approach leads to a positioning of the opposition and those on the streets as fanatics and irrational. Such coverage, in the context of poorly understood religious rituals of Shiite Iran, mobilizes all the negative affects associated with the religion of “Islam.” In his book Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, Edward Said (1981) suggests that the “Iran story” is never separate from the story of an entity called “Islam” in all of its abstractions presented to audiences by media “experts.”8 Once the protestors are positioned as religious fanatics, the Shah can easily be positioned for the readers as a “modernizer,” and the criticism leveled against him is expressed in terms of the pace of reform. Thus, the problem with the Shah’s rule was articulated as “too rapid modernization,” which was usually cited as the main reason for the revolt against him (Keddie, 2003, p.  154). However, to put such a press coverage in its proper historical context, it should be pointed out that “modernization” as a policy and as an ideology was at the heart of the Cold War foreign policy strategy of the United States. From that context in the late 1950s came an influential academic study, based on research funded by the State Department, by Daniel Lerner in the form of a book, entitled The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (1958). As Hemant Shah (2011) has argued, as “a policy initiative, modernization was the centerpiece of Cold War efforts to thwart the spread of Soviet Communism in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.” As a theory, modernization offered a model of societal reorganization “made possible by embracing Western manufacturing technology, political structures, values, and systems of mass communication” (p. 1). In other words, the perspective of modernization from which both the Shah and Iranians were being judged was not separable from the context of the Cold War and the geopolitical interests of the United States.9

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When audiences hear the policymakers and editorials speak of the “loss of Iran” in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, there is a “we” that “lost” Iran. Such was the logic of the Cold War where the world was divided into two spheres of influence, when there was an “us” against “them.” In about a year after President Carter’s speech in which Iran was projected as an “island of stability,” the Shah was effectively forced to leave the country for good in January 1979. This view of Iran, which failed to understand the revolutionary movement in the making, is often described as a colossal failure of intelligence and the failure of other institutions of the state in the United States (e.g., Jervis, 2010).10 That is to say, the revolution in Iran was a “surprise.” In this sense, the failure is journalism’s failure as well. One of Dorman and Farhang’s (1987) aim in their study was to know if journalism contributed to this surprise. They formulated a question to frame their analysis (p.  3): “Did the press report what was reasonably knowable about Iran?” Additionally, they wanted to know if journalists “remain independent in their judgments from foreign policy establishment” (p. 12). Their answer is in the negative on both counts, and that news media followed the cues of foreign policymakers rather than exercising independent judgment in reporting. The inevitable conclusion is that the press instead of fulfilling its watchdog function remained deferential to the foreign policy establishment rather than adversative in this arena.

Post-revolution News Media and Iran Given the strategic importance of Iran to the geopolitics of the Middle East, the centrality of the Islamic Republic’s relations to the United States and its allies to such geopolitics, and the eventful history of Iran on the global stage over the past four decades, one would expect to find a plethora of scholarly studies of the press coverage of Iran during this period. However, that is not the case. One of the topics of considerable media coverage was the hostage crisis. On November 4, 1979, a group of students occupied the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American embassy staff as hostages for 444 days, releasing them on January 20, 1981. The coverage consumed the American media with the launch of a dedicated nightly news program on ABC, titled The Iran Crisis-America Held Hostage. A number would follow the title of the program every night to remind the viewers the number of days Americans were held hostage. The program was launched on

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November 8, 1979. It eventually became Nightline, hosted by Ted Koppel, as a counter-programming measure against the “king of late night” television Johnny Carson. As one columnist put it, “ABC has finally found someone who can beat Johnny Carson. Khomeini.”11 Among the scholarly works that address the press coverage of the hostage crisis, Jahedi and Abdullah (2012) conducted a linguistics critical discourse analysis of The New York Times in its coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis (1979–1980) and the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Their aim was to show how structures and properties of language contributed to a specific portrayal of the Iranian nation, and the ideological implications of such portrayal. Their analysis indicated, “there was a tendency to polarize between Us (good, righteous, peaceful, etc.) and Them (evil, violent, etc.) to associate stereotypical negative traits to the out-group. It was found that such ideological representations of the Iranian participants were linguistically realized via the dominant processes of transitivity, thematization, and lexicalization” (p. 361). Altheide (1982) studied television news coverage by the three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) of the Iranian hostage crisis. The focus of his study was “news consonance,” which refers to the creation of consensus not based on the reality of a situation but the uniformity of news media reporting about it (Noelle-Neumann & Mathes, 1987). He concluded that, “the major network newscasts essentially presented the same message and emphasis to American viewers about the hostage situation in Iran” (p. 486). Larson (1986) investigated the television coverage of Iran between 1972 and 1981, with a focus on the Iranian hostage crisis. His aim was to assess the existing knowledge about the relationship between broadcast television and the conduct of the US foreign policy. Another incident that garnered press coverage was the American downing of Iran Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988, which killed all 290 passengers on board, including children. The plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf, and the image of bodies floating in the waters of the Persian Gulf shown on Iranian television seared into the memory of Iranians. Among the scholarly studies that examined the press coverage of the incident is Peh and Melkote’s (1991) work that explored bias in the news coverage by leading newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times) of the two incidents covered in international news sections. These were the Soviet Union downing of Korean Air Line flight 007  in September 1983 and the American downing of Iran Air flight 655 in July 1988. The study aimed to find out “if there was a difference in

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the way the U.S. elite press reported crises if the nationality of the preparators were different” (p. 59). Entman’s (1991) studied the framing of the same two incidents of Korea Air Line flight 007 and Iran Air flight 655 in order to contrast the narratives in the coverage of international news. He found that “the news stories about the U.S. downing of an Iranian plane called it a technical problem while the Soviet downing of a Korean jet was portrayed as a moral outrage” (p. 6). News magazines and longform journalism have had their share of contribution to the coverage of significant international political issues of the day. Time magazine, for example, chose Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as its “Person of the Year” in 1979. Fayyaz and Shirazi (2013) examined the representations of Iranians in Time and Newsweek from 1998 to 2009. Their textual analysis of the coverage of Iran led them to conclude that the coverage is not descriptive of Iran and that it contributes to the formation of, in the language of Edward Said (1981), “community of interpretations.” They argued, “While some shifts in Western media representations of Iranians have occurred in the thirty years since the revolution, the underlying ontological assumptions of these representations have remained remarkably durable” (p. 53). Additionally, they claimed that the discourse of journalists in these newsmagazines “depicts the political behavior of Iranians on the basis of essentialized notions of Persian and/or Islamic civilization, while very often emphasizing the taken for granted superiority of the West” (p. 53). There has been much press coverage of the Iranian “nuclear program.” However, there is a dearth of scholarly examination of the media coverage of the issue. The bulk of the existing work, which was mostly published before the Iran Deal was a reality, is devoted to discourse analysis. KhosraviNik (2015) examined news coverage of the Iranian nuclear program in two British and two Iranian newspapers. Conducting a critical discourse analysis of the coverage of the nuclear program, he explored national identity construction and legitimation and de-legitimation in the journalistic discourses surrounding the Iranian nuclear program. Izadi and Saghaye-Biria (2007) conducted a study of elite American newspaper editorials (The New  York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal) from 1984 to 2004. Drawing from Edward Said’s work on orientalism and linguistics, they identified “orientalist themes” (e.g., inferiority, backwardness, irrationality, untrustworthy) in the editorials. Rasti and Sahragard (2012) investigated “biased coverage” of the Iranian nuclear power program in The Economist’s reporting. Applying

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critical discourse analysis, they focused on discursive strategies that would lead to the “act of delegitimating Iran’s nuclear program,” and to advocating the imposition of sanctions on Iran (p. 729). Siegel and Barforoush (2013) examined the news coverage of the Iranian nuclear program in six influential newspapers in the United States and in the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2012 to see if the framing of the issues limited the choices available to policymakers and audiences. One of their main conclusions was that these newspapers framed “their coverage of Iran’s nuclear program in a manner that emphasized official narratives of the dispute and a relatively narrow range of policy choices available to officials” (p. vi). The role of women in Middle Eastern and Muslim societies including Iran has often been used as a cover to advocate interventionist and aggressive foreign policies. The media coverage of Iranian women’s issues is thus implicated in policy deliberations and deserves critical scrutiny. There are a relatively few studies that have addressed the news coverage of Iranian women. Roushanzamir (2004) conducted a textual analysis of the print media coverage of Iran from 1995 to 1998 in news, editorial, and feature stories using keywords of Iran, Iranian women, Islam, Islamic women, and the Middle East to include stories from hard news to fashion and entertainment. She argued that these stories “are anchored by the graphic illustrations of Iranian women, veiled in the apparently impenetrable black chador,” and they provide an ideological perspective rooted in orientalist visions (p.  9). After initially pointing out the similarities between 2009 and 1979 American media coverage of political developments in Iran, Chan-Malik (2011) studied “American television and news coverage of the Iranian women’s revolution of March 1979” to assess the racial politics of such coverage. Addressing the American discourse of the veil, the media coverage of American feminist Kate Millett’s trip to Iran, and the white American feminists’ construction of Islam and Iranian women, she surveyed these developments in terms of American domestic cultural politics through the lens of “racial orientalism” (p. 116).12 The disputed presidential election of Iran in June 2009 with its bloody aftermath was a major political event that shook the Islamic Republic. The events of that summer received considerable attention worldwide. What took place came to be known as the “green movement” of Iran and has become the subject of numerous scholarly publications. That moniker continues to be used to this date (e.g., Dabashi, 2010; Hashemi & Postel, 2011; Nabavi, 2012; Rivetti, 2020; Alimagham, 2020). Indeed, it has become difficult for observers of Iran not to see Iran through the prism of

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“green movement,” or “protest” and “resistance” ever since. Arguably, the events of the summer of 2009 in Iran and their media coverage may have been the story with potential to re-shape the image of Iran in the minds of American and global audiences more than any other since the hostage crisis in 1980. The reaction of Western media to the events of 2009 and the role of social media in Iran during the summer of 2009 have received considerable attention. Some have focused on the broader reaction of audiences to the media coverage of the events. Alexanian (2011), for example, examined transnational responses to the aftermath of the disputed presidential election. She explored “the representation of social media as a form of ‘eyewitness account’ and its related claims to truth” (p. 426). Semati and Brookey (2014) examined media coverage of the viral video of Neda Agha Soltan’s death during the 2009 Iranian presidential election and its framing by legacy media in relationship to postfeminism. Beyond these studies, however, the majority of studies regarding media and the post-election unrest in Iran have not addressed the media coverage of those events. Instead, they have focused on the role of social media in mobilization, protest, uprising, and dissent in Iran during the 2009 unrests, leading to the proliferation of a singular view of social media in Iran for many years following that eventful summer.13 Dorman and Farhang’s (1987) study of the American press and Iran is the only book-length scholarly treatment of the subject. It is an insightful and important study and has much to offer as a press coverage analysis and for its reflections as a window to the history of a troubled relationship between the two countries. While we do not take issues with individual claims they make and the analysis they offer, we point out that their study is not guided by any specific theoretical framework. Furthermore, they do not address the question of methodology. In the next chapter, we offer an overview of the theoretical and methodological resources that guide our data collection, analyses, and the parameters of our empirical examination, and the scope of the claims we make with respect to our empirical investigation.

Notes 1. Beyond the scholarly sources we cite in this section, we have consulted several sources for constructing the timeline we offer. These sources include Nuclear Threat Initiative’s “Iran Nuclear Chronology” (2011),

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Arm Control Association’s “Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran” (2020) as well as their “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance” (2020), and the Brookings Institution’s “A Comprehensive Timeline of the Iran Nuclear Deal (Williams, 2015). For more on diplomacy with Iran that led to the Iran Deal, we have benefited from Parsi’s (2012) work on the subject. 2. As O’Neill and Harcup (2009) argue, although most textbooks on journalism offer a list of news values (e.g., conflict, drama, recency, proximity, size), conceptions of news values tend to be contested historically. 3. Mosaddeq started his higher education in France and finished his doctoral degree in international law in Switzerland (see Abrahamian, 1982). 4. Ervand Abrahamian expresses this endorsement in a very positive book review (Abrahamian, 1988). 5. We would add that sympathetic views toward the opposition to the Shah found its most famous expression in Michel Foucault’s fascination with the Iranian Revolution and his trip to Iran in 1978 (see Ghamari-Tabrizi, 2016). 6. For more explanations of the larger context, especially with respect to the “Nixon doctrine” and Iran, see Guerrero (2016). 7. For more on social and economic conditions of the Iranian revolution, see Abrahamian (1979). 8. As Edward Said’s (1981) Covering Islam is a part of a series of books that examine “the modern relationship between the world of Islam, the Arabs, and the Orient on the one hand, and on the other the West: France, Britain, and in particular the United States” (p. 1). The other two are his Orientalism (1978) and his The Question of Palestine (1979). 9. The modernization theory has been a major paradigm in the field of international communication. See Sosale (2004) for a critique of this paradigm. 10. For an insightful analysis of the larger context of this failure and a fuller explanation of the making of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, see Charles Kurzman (2004), Said Amir Arjomand (1989), and Michael Axworthy (2013). 11. Quoted in Naficy (1995, p. 80). The program was the brainchild of Roone Arledge, the head of ABC news division, as an attempt to compete with the “king of late-night television,” Johnny Carson (see Giuffo, 2001). McAlister (2001) has even argued that “the story of terrorism, captivity, Iran, and Islam was also a story about Television” (p. 200). 12. For more on the narratives of “rescuing” Muslim women from dangerous brown men, see Lila Abu-Lughod’s (2013) and Gargi Bhattacharyya (2008). 13. For examples, see the collections of essays by Faris and Rahimi (2015). For more examples see Ali and Fahmy (2013) and Golkar (2011). That Iranian social media are seen primarily as agent of “resistance” or ­“mobilization” or “liberation” or “uprising” against the state means either they are weak

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and ineffective (since the Islamic Republic is still standing and young folks are not yet liberated) or such characterizations reveal an impoverished conceptualization of Iranian social media and their reality (see Olszewska, 2013; Nooshin, 2017; Semati, 2017). For broader perspectives on Iran and the internet, see Akhavan (2013) and Sreberny and Khiabany (2010).

References Abrahamian, E. (1979). Iran in revolution: The opposition forces. MERIP Reports, 75/74(March–April), 3–8. Abrahamian, E. (1982). Iran between two revolutions. Princeton University Press. Abrahamian, E. (1988). Review of The U.S. press and Iran: Foreign policy and the journalism of deference. Middle East Report, 53(July-August), 48–49. Abrahamian, E. (2008). A modern history of Iran. Cambridge University Press. Abrahamian, E. (2013). 1953, The CIA, and the roots of modern U.S.-Iranian relations. The New Press. Abu-Lughod, L. (2013). Do Muslim women need saving? Harvard University Press. Akhavan, N. (2013). Electronic Iran: The cultural politics of an online evolution. Rutgers University Press. Alexanian, J. A. (2011). Eyewitness accounts and political claims: Transnational responses to the 2009 postelection protests in Iran. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 31(2), 425–442. Ali, S. R., & Fahmy, S. (2013). Gatekeeping and citizen journalism: The use of social media during the recent uprisings in Iran, Egypt, and Libya. Media, War & Conflict, 6(1), 55–69. Alimagham, P. (2020). Contesting the Iranian revolution: The green uprisings. Cambridge University Press. Altheide, D. L. (1982). Three-in-one news: Network coverage of Iran. Journalism Quarterly., 59(3), 482–486. Amanat, A. (2017). Iran: A modern history. Yale University Press. Arjomand, S. A. (1989). The turban for the crown: The Islamic revolution in Iran. Oxford university Press. Axworthy, M. (2008). A history of Iran: Empire of the mind. Basic Books. Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary Iran: A history of the Islamic Republic. Oxford university Press. Bhattacharyya, G. (2008). Dangerous brown men: Exploiting sex, violence and feminism and the war on terror. Zed Books. Chan-Malik, S. (2011). Chadors, feminists, terror: The racial politics of U.S. media representations of the 1979 Iranian women’s movement. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 637, 112–140. Dabashi, H. (2010). Iran, the green movement and the USA: The fox and the paradox. Zed Books.

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Dorman, W. A., & Farhang, M. (1987). The U.S. press and Iran: Foreign policy and the journalism of deference. University of California Press. Entman, R. (1991). Framing U.S. coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran Air incidents. Journal of Communication, 41(4), 6–27. Faris, D. M., & Rahimi, B. (Eds.). (2015). Social media in Iran: Politics and society after 2009. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Fayyaz, S., & Shirazi, R. (2013). Good Iranian, bad Iranian: Representations of Iran and Iranians in Time and Newsweek (1998–2009). Iranian Studies, 46(1), 53–72. Fischer, M.  J. M. (1980). Iran: From religious dispute to revolution. Harvard University Press. Ghamari-Tabrizi, B. (2016). Foucault in Iran: Islamic revolution after the Enlightenment. University of Minnesota Press. Giuffo, J. (2001). Nightline is spawned out of the hostage crisis. Columbia Journalism Review, 40(4), 86–87. Golkar, S. (2011). Liberation or suppression technologies? The Internet, the green movement and the regime in Iran. International Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society, 9(1), 50–70. Guerrero, J., & G. (2016). The Carter administration and the fall of Iran’s Pahlavi Dynasty: US-Iran relations on the brink of the 1979 revolution. Palgrave Macmillan. Hashemi, N., & Postel, D. (Eds.). (2011). The people reloaded: The green movement and the struggle for Iran’s future. Melville House. Homayounvash, M. (2016). Iran and the nuclear Question: History and evolutionary trajectory. Routledge. Iran Nuclear Chronology. (2011). Nuclear threat initiative. https://media.nti. org/pdfs/iran_nuclear.pdf Izadi, F., & Saghaye-Biria, H. (2007). A discourse analysis of elite American newspaper editorials: the case of Iran’s nuclear program. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 31(2), 140–165. Jahedi, M., & Abdullah, F. S. (2012). The ideological construction of Iran in the NYT. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 32(3), 361–381. Jervis, R. (2010). Why intelligence fails: Lessons from the Iranian revolution and the Iraq war. Cornell University Press. Keddie, N. (2003). Modern Iran: Roots and results of revolution. Yale University Press. KhosraviNik, M. (2015). Discourse, identity and legitimacy: Self and Other in representations of Iran’s nuclear programme. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Kurzman, C. (2004). The unthinkable revolution in Iran. Harvard University Press. Larson, J. F. (1986). Television and U.S. foreign policy: The case of the Iran hostage crisis. Journal of Communication, 36(4), 108–130.

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Lerner, D. (1958). The passing of traditional society: Modernizing the Middle East. Free Press. McAlister, M. (2001). Epic encounters: Culture, media, and U.S. interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000. University of California Press. Moens, A. (1991). President Carter’s advisers and the fall of the Shah. Political Science Quarterly, 106(2), 211–237. Mousavian, S.  H. (2014). Iran and the United States: An insider’s view on the failed past and the road to peace. Bloomsbury. Nabavi, N. (Ed.). (2012). Iran: From theocracy to the green movement. Palgrave Macmillan. Naficy, H. (1995). Mediating the Other: American pop culture representation of postrevolutionary Iran. In Y.  R. Kamalipour (Ed.), The US media and the Middle East: Image and perception (pp. 73–85). Praeger. Noelle-Neumann, E., & Mathes, R. (1987). The “event as event” and the “event as news:” The significance of “consonance” for media effects research. European Journal of Communication, 2(4), 391–414. Nooshin, L. (2017). Whose liberation? Iranian popular music and the fetishization of resistance. Popular Communication, 15(3), 163–191. O’Neill, D., & Harcup, T. (2009). News values and selectivity. In K.  Wahl-­ Jorgensen & T.  Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of journalism studies (pp. 161–174). Routledge. Olszewska, Z. (2013). Classy kids and down-at-heel intellectuals: Status aspiration and blind spots in the contemporary ethnography of Iran. Iranian Studies, 46(6), 841–862. Parsi, T. (2012). A single roll of the dice: Obama’s diplomacy with Iran. Yale University Press. Parsi, T. (2017). Losing an enemy: Obama, Iran, and the triumph of diplomacy. Yale University Press. Peh, D., & Melkote, S. R. (1991). Bias in newspaper reporting: A content analysis of the coverage of Korean Airlines and Iran airbus shootings in the U.S. elite press. Gazette, 47(2), 59–78. Rasti, A., & Sahragard, R. (2012). Actor analysis and action delegitimation of the participants involved in Iran’s nuclear power contention: A case study of The Economist. Discourse & Society, 23(6), 729–748. Rivetti, P. (2020). Political participation in Iran from Khatami to the green movement. Palgrave Macmillan. Roushanzamir, E. L. (2004). Chimera veil of “Iranian woman” and processes of U.S. textual commodification: How U.S. print media represent Iran. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28(1), 9–28. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage. Said, E. (1979). The question of Palestine. Vintage Books.

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Said, E. (1981). Covering Islam: How the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world. Pantheon Books. Semati, M. (2017). Sounds like Iran: On popular music of Iran. Popular Communication, 15(3), 155–162. Semati, M., & Brookey, R. (2014). Not for Neda: Digital media, (citizen) journalism, and the invention of a postfeminist martyr. Communication, Culture & Critique, 7(2), 137–153. Shah, H. (2011). The production of modernization: Daniel Lerner, mass media, and “The Passing of Traditional Society”. Temple University Press. Siegel, J., & Barforoush, S. (2013). Media coverage of Iran’s nuclear program: An analysis of U.S. and U.K. coverage, 2009–2012. Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. https://spp.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019­07/media.pdf Sosale, S. (2004). Toward a critical genealogy of communication, development, and social change. In M. Semati (Ed.), New frontiers in international communication theory (pp. 33–53). Rowman & Littlefield. Sreberny, A., & Khiabany, G. (2010). Blogistan: The internet and politics in Iran. I.B. Tauris. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance. (2020). Arms Control Association. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-­at­a-­glance Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran. (2020). Arms Control Association. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-­of-­Nuclear-­Diplomacy-­ With-­Iran Williams, J.  R. (2015). A comprehensive timeline of the iran nuclear deal. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/ 2015/07/21/a-­comprehensive-­timeline-­of-­the-­iran-­nuclear-­deal/

CHAPTER 2

Theoretical Framework: Media Sociology, Indexing, Source Usage, and Framing

Abstract  This chapter discusses the theoretical framework utilized in this book’s examination of The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of the Iran Deal. It begins by introducing media sociology and Shoemaker and Reese’s Hierarchical Influences Model, the conceptual lynchpins for the empirical components of this project. Special attention is given to indexing theory, which addresses and expands the symbiotic relationship between journalists and official sources and is hailed by many researchers as an important framework for studying the relationship between the government and the press, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs. The related areas of cascading activation, source usage, and framing are also discussed. Keywords  Media sociology • Indexing • Cascading activation • Source usage • Framing • Iran • News The empirical studies conducted for this book offer extensive insight into US news media assessment of the Iran Deal, as well as various forces that influenced coverage of the agreement hailed by many as President Barack Obama’s most significant foreign policy achievement (Tharoor, 2019). After 20 months of negotiations between Iran and a group of six Western nations, referred to as P5 + 1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members: Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, plus © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Semati et al., Iran and the American Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74900-2_2

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Germany) reached a historic accord with the July 14, 2015, signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). More commonly known as the Iran Deal, it called for economic sanctions to be lifted once Iran consented to a series of measures limiting its ability to develop nuclear weapons (Haltiwanger, 2020). After confirmation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran had followed through on a pledge to dismantle large sections of its nuclear program, the deal went into effect on January 16, 2016 (Sanger, 2016). The Iran Deal was seen as an important step in the support of nuclear nonproliferation. As one article noted, “No state had ever willingly negotiated special restrictions on its own ongoing nuclear program as severe as the ones Iran has accepted” (Pillar, 2015, para. 10). However, from the start, the agreement was controversial, with long-standing US allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, voicing strong opposition, along with many members of Congress (DeYoung, 2015; Gordon & Sanger, 2015). Once the negotiations became public, the Obama administration faced criticism from a variety of sources, both foreign and domestic, who were against the possibility of an agreement (Obama under pressure, 2015). A noteworthy example of this opposition was the speech given to the US Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015 during which he strongly criticized any forthcoming deal. His appearance, deemed in one article as “an extraordinary spectacle,” was seen by many as an attempt to undercut Obama (Baker, 2015, para. 2). At a minimum, Netanyahu’s speech was confirmation that the negotiations had complicated the relationship between the United States and Israel. Republican members of Congress were the main sources of domestic opposition. They tried several strategies to block the path of the deal but were unsuccessful in gaining the votes needed for a disapproval resolution related to Iran’s nuclear program (Reynolds, 2015). Clearly, the negotiations and subsequent agreement took place during a time that the US administration had staunch critics of its foreign policy both domestically and internationally. In fact, support for the deal was also seen as a risky proposition among Democrats because of criticism from the pro-Israel lobby (Hager et  al., 2019). Although the critics were unsuccessful in blocking negotiations and changing the path of the deal during the Obama administration, they were still visible in the media. Thus, there were many prominent voices seeking to influence how journalists covered the Iran Deal. Given our interest in how journalists did their work, not to mention the profession’s documented tendency to

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focus on the power structures of society (Lawrence, 1996), the theoretical approach taken here is steeped in a framework most often described as media sociology (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of media sociology, as well as the related areas of source usage and framing. Special attention is given to indexing theory which is often discussed as an effective way for researchers to examine journalism’s relationship with official sources and the government in foreign affairs (e.g., Aday, 2010; Lawrence, 2010; Rowlings et al., 2011).

Media Sociology This perspective developed as a response to what some researchers—most notably Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese, authors of the seminal text in the field, Mediating the Message in the 21st Century: A Media Sociology Perspective—said was an overemphasis on media effects and uses and gratifications studies in communication research. Such work, they wrote, “often ignored two of the most important elements of the mass communication process: media content and the factors that shape it” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1990, p. 649), despite the fact that content is the foundation of media effects research. Little attention, they note, was given to interests related to journalism, such as how does news get constructed? (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). While it is undoubtedly important to examine media impact on audiences as well as how audiences create meaning, Shoemaker and Reese have long contended that it is equally important to analyze what influences media content because of the effect content has on consumers. In other words, who sets the media’s agenda? They conceive of content as a dependent variable, linked to numerous other contributing factors. Over the years, research in this area, especially examinations of journalistic work and the process of gathering news, has looked at “questions of power, control, structures, institutions, class and community” (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016, p. 396). However, media sociology is far from a unified field. In fact, Waisbord (2016) refers to it as a “postdiscipline,” in part because of a lack of “common questions, arguments and research directions” (p.  2). Similarly, Shoemaker and Reese (2014) say that media sociology research has been diverse and even messy, spanning across a multitude of traditions and methodologies while Waisbord (2016) further notes that research in this

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area “is not concerned with firm disciplinary boundaries [but] is driven by permanent curiosity about social problems and analytical knots, tying media and society together” (p. 2). Given media sociology’s emphasis on content, and this project’s focus on news, it is important to note that this line of research does not treat content as an objective reflection of reality. Indeed, numerous studies in this realm have described the content produced by journalists as a social construction of reality (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014; Tuchman, 1978). Thus, as Shoemaker and Reese (2014) note, media sociology research examines how that construction is “constructed.” Journalism as a social practice has been a hallmark of media sociology research. Two foundational studies in this realm are White’s (1950) “Mr. Gates” study of a newspaper wire service editor in the Midwest and Breed’s (1955) examination of how news organizations impart their policies to journalists. Initially, however, both studies were evaluated using the lens of the predominant media effects and audience traditions (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). White (1950) looked at the story selection process of a wire editor at a small newspaper and reported that his decisions were “highly subjective … [and] based on the gatekeeper’s own set of experiences, attitudes and expectations” (p.  386). White and other scholars such as Schramm and Roberts (1971) in the influential book The Process and Effects of Mass Communication looked at the results merely on the individual level and not in terms of the larger social system (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). A subsequent analysis of the White study found that “Mr. Gates’” selection of stories to run in the paper was in close conjunction with the types and proportions of stories sent to him by the wire services (Hirsch, 1977). White placed too much emphasis on the power actually held by media gatekeepers, according to Reese and Ballinger (2001) who wrote that the study assumed that the wire editor “had before him the entire range of the world’s daily happenings” (p. 647) when in fact he was choosing from a much narrower range of choices. Indeed, studies have found that wire service editor decisions are similar across newspapers and that the number of news stories sent to newspapers by wire services serves to suggest to these editors the proper mix of news (Gieber, 1964; Whitney & Becker, 1982). Breed (1955), in interviews with 120 newspaper journalists at mid-­ sized newspapers, sought to discover how news organizations impart their policies to journalists and maintain them even if they conflict with

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professional norms. He learned that policy was never specifically explained. Instead, it was enforced indirectly and learned through on-the-job socialization where a journalist “discovers and internalizes the rights and obligations of his status and its norms and values” (p.  328). The journalists learned to anticipate professional role expectations in terms of what stories to cover and how those stories should be reported. Senior staff members were particularly important in this regard. Breed (1955) said that veteran reporters and editors often served as professional role models and mentors to newcomers, thus playing a crucial role in conformity by producing “reference group behavior” where journalists identify with these senior staffers and try to produce similar work. However, despite the fact that Breed (1955) provided insight into newsmaking as a process, his findings were analyzed as if the audience held all the power, not the producers of the news. Reese and Ballinger (2001) report that the policies of media organizations were treated as unproblematic because at the time it was felt that story selection occurred in tandem with the prevailing societal order, where “media are not a social problem, and so neither is the construction of news within these media. Any bias is still to be found within the individual and not in the larger system” (p.  653). It was only later that researchers, mainly sociologists, began to fully consider newswork as a subject worthy of study in its own right (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). A number of important works following the ethnographic method of White (1950) and Breed (1955) were published in the 1970s and 1980s (Stonbely, 2015). These in-depth studies of major broadcast and print media outlets (e.g., Epstein, 1973; Fishman, 1980; Tuchman, 1978; Gans, 1979) broke away from the effects and audience tradition of communication research and instead looked at the content created as an organizational product. In other words, within these works is the development of the idea that news is a socially constructed reality and not merely transmitted to the audience (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016). Journalists have often expressed frustration about this designation (Schudson, 2003). However, this proclamation does not contend that news is fiction but, instead, asserts that what becomes news is influenced by numerous factors. For example, a later ethnographic study of the development of online newspapers suggested that they are different from print newspapers in editorial practices. Boczkowski (2004) said factors from outside the newsroom such as advertisers and the audience have more influence on what online newspaper journalists consider to be newsworthy, a finding supported by Cassidy (2008) in a survey of print and online newspaper journalists. According to

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Shoemaker and Reese (2014), “producers of news and entertainment content mediate reality through the mere process of doing their work, but also because of their relationships with culture, power, and ideology” (p. 39). Such an approach has long been a hallmark of media sociology research. Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) Hierarchical Influences Model, which attempts to acknowledge and account for the multitude of complex forces that influence media content, is the most influential articulation of the media sociology approach. The model is organized around five levels of influences, arranged from macro to micro. The Individual level, the most micro of the levels, concerns the characteristics of individual journalists themselves, such as personal traits, demographic factors, and news values. The Routines level deals with the norms of the journalism profession. They are what Shoemaker and Reese (2014) call the “patterned, repeated practices, forms, and rules that media workers use to do their jobs” (p. 165). The Organizational level looks at influences relating to specific media organizations. Influences at this level can pertain to ownership, policies and rules, economics and structure. The Social Institutions level constitutes forces that occur outside the formal media organization’s environment. Included at this level are factors such as audiences, public relations, the government, and technology. This level also examines “how the various organizations doing media work cohere into a larger institution,” along with journalism’s relationship with other institutions of society (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016, p.  402). The most macro of the levels, described by Shoemaker and Reese (2014) as “The foundation from which all media content is constructed” (p. 93), is the Social System level. This level is concerned with “traditional theories of society and power as they relate to media” (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016) including ideological forces. Shoemaker and Reese (2014) state that the Hierarchical Model also “suggests how influence at one level may interact with that at another” (p. 1). Furthermore, there are numerous forces impacting content at each of the five levels (Cassidy, 2017). Therefore, it would be impossible to address all the influences on media coverage of the Iran Deal at all five levels. While this volume does address influences on content at several levels, the quantitative studies presented primarily deal with the Routines level, which holds a prominent position in media sociology literature. A large portion of news media content is determined by routine forces (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), and Fishman (1980) calls routines the

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“crucial factor which determines how newsworkers construe the world of activities they confront” (p. 14).

News Sources Of special importance here are the sources used by journalists in their media reporting about the Iran Deal. Sources are an influential Routine level force. They have a significant impact on media content because journalists rely on them for story topics and the material needed to write their stories (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Not only do sources play a large role in what information is provided to the public, they impact what image of society is presented (Soloski, 1989). Similarly, Conrad (1999) and Shoemaker and Reese (2014) note sources shape and provide context in news stories, influencing how other information presented is evaluated. Thus as Reese et al. (1994) state, “no analysis of news media content is complete without a close look at the sources of that content” (p. 94). In his seminal book, Deciding What’s News, Herbert Gans (1979) wrote that the news upholds the legitimacy of elite sources with formal authority, such as government officials. Given that journalists perceive the power structures of society as the prime sites for gathering news (Tuchman, 1978), there is a symbiotic relationship between journalists and such sources. Gans (1979) said the two major criteria for source selection are availability and suitability. Elite sources are usually available because of their geographic and social proximity and are suitable because they can supply important information without placing undue strain on their resources or those of the journalists. Thus, as a result “by identifying centralized sources of information as legitimized social institutions, news organizations and newsworkers wed themselves to specific beats and bureaus. Those sites are then objectified as the appropriate sites at which information is gathered … [and] as the legitimate and legitimating sources of both information and governance” (Tuchman, 1978, p. 210). Accordingly, a large body of work has found that news of all kinds is dominated by statements from official sources. Gans (1979) found that prominent sources, such as the president, presidential candidates, and leading officials at the federal, state, and local levels, were heard from most frequently in his study of CBS and NBS News, Time, and Newsweek. Sigal (1973), in a study of front page stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post, discovered that more than 81% of sources used were government officials, indicating, he said, that journalistic routines favored

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authoritative sources who were also accessible. More than half (55.4%) of the sources used in a study of regional and local papers were affiliated with a governmental body (Brown et al., 1987), while another study examining the sourcing patterns of national security reporters in seven leading newspapers found that 73% of citations in stories came from US government sources (Hallin et al. 1993). Expert sources such as social scientists, members of think tanks, and academics also regularly appear in news stories (Reese et  al., 1994). Dimitrova and Stromback (2009) reported that 17% of 2004 election stories in US newspapers utilized academic sources (Dimitrova & Stromback, 2009). The use of these types of sources adds credibility and authority to news coverage because their credentials (titles, degrees, affiliation) make the reporting appear more objective (Dimitrova, & Stromback, 2009; Soley, 1992; Steele, 1995). Freedman et al. (2010) note that the credibility of experts “help reporters explain problems and assess the implications of what partisans advocate” (p. 21). Furthermore, they can impact public opinion (Reese et al., 1994). Given the advent of social media as an emerging Routines level tool for journalists (Tandoc & Vos, 2016), particularly as a mechanism for incorporating user-generated content into coverage (Hermida et  al. 2014), recent studies of news sources have wondered if non-official sources are now featured more often in stories. While some have found an increased presence of ordinary citizens (Ferrucci, 2018; Kleemans et al., 2017), the overall findings of such studies still confirm the strong dependence on elite sources (Reich, 2015). For example, in an examination of news coverage of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Bruno (2011) found that while news organizations relied on social media content in their initial reports, once their personnel were present on the scene, they resorted to more traditional sources, such as officials and experts. Similarly, although Ferrucci (2018) discovered that social media helped enable audience members to exert more influence in the news production process, it also helped facilitate journalists’ access to expert sources, thus normalizing social media into previously established routines (Singer, 2005).

Indexing Research examining Bennett’s (1990) indexing hypothesis addresses and expands the symbiotic relationship between journalists and official sources to better explain variations in news content over time (Lawrence, 1996).

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Indexing is hailed by many researchers as an important theoretical framework for studying the relationship between the government and the press, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs (e.g., Aday, 2010; Lawrence, 2010; Rowlings et  al., 2011). The hypothesis states that “mass media news professionals from the boardrooms to the beat tend to index the range of voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic” (Bennett, 1990, p. 106). In other words, indexing guides the journalistic decision-making process and reflects the profession’s predisposition toward the power structure, which, in effect, relinquishes their idealized role as a government watchdog by letting officials set the agenda (Bennett, 1990; Lawrence, 1996). When there is conflict among official sources, the news will reflect that conflict as well as a broader range of policy options and viewpoints (Alexseev & Bennett, 1995). But, when there is agreement among elite sources, there will be little evidence of debate in coverage. Non-official sources are included only when they express opinions already reflected in debate among official sources (Bennett, 1990). In the initial test of indexing, Bennett (1990) content-analyzed coverage of US policy toward Nicaragua in The New  York Times in 17 time periods corresponding to Congressional votes from 1983 to 1986. During most of this time the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan and Congress were in conflict regarding funding of a counter-revolutionary army (the Contras) that was attempting to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. Support for the Contras was a major part of Reagan’s foreign policy, and Congress rejected numerous requests for military aid to the Contras. But, in June 1986 the battle came to a climax as Congress authorized a $100 million aid package for the Contras. Bennett (1990) found that 67.9% of the opinions voiced in coverage of the issue came from official sources, while only 15% came from nongovernmental voices. Congressional opposition, which ranged from 12% to 31% during the time periods prior to the Contra funding being approved, dropped to just 5% after the vote. Furthermore, nongovernmental sources “all but disappeared” following the Reagan policy victory. Bennett concluded that the evidence suggested that The New York Times coverage of Nicaragua was cued by Congress, indicating support for indexing. Many subsequent studies have found support for indexing (e.g., Alexseev & Bennett, 1995; Bennett et al., 2006; Dickson, 1992; Hayes & Guardino, 2010; Kim, 2000; Zaller & Chiu, 1996). Althaus (2003) notes

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that the wide range of subjects examined, as well as the diverse methodologies employed, is strengths of the indexing literature. In another study of the US-Nicaragua conflict, Dickson (1992) found that US official sources dominated coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post and concluded that the government was allowed to dominate policy debate, which may have legitimated the administration’s interpretation of events. Furthermore, any coverage critical of the US government was reactive, rather than proactive. Similarly, Zaller and Chiu (1996) found significant correlations between The New York Times press coverage of four foreign policy crises and the positions advocated by the president and members of Congress. Media reports about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal were often in line with the perspective advocated by the White House, according to Bennett et  al. (2006). The incident was initially framed as one of torture when photographs of US troops committing a series of human rights violations against detainees at the prison were made public. But the primary frame in news media coverage quickly became one of an isolated case of abuse committed by only a few low-level soldiers. This position reflected the one advocated by government officials and is evidence of “mainstream news organizations’ deference to political power” (p. 481). Hayes and Guardino (2010) examined television news coverage in the months leading up to the 2003 Iraq War. They found that officials from the administration of President Bush were quoted most frequently and that the possibility of an invasion of Iraq was portrayed in a positive manner. Furthermore, very little attention was paid to domestic opposition to the potential invasion. Thus, coverage accorded special privilege to the administration’s pro-invasion position. However, Hayes and Guardino (2010) also found that journalists turned to foreign officials for anti-war perspectives and that Iraqi sources were second only to Bush administration sources in prominence. A similar study of newspaper coverage of the pre-Iraq War debate also showed a dramatic increase in the use of non-American official sources after the US Congress passed the resolution authorizing use of military force in Iraq. Groshek (2008) said this could have been because even though consensus had been achieved among US officials, the international community was still debating the decision. Althaus et al. (1996) report that 52% of sources in The New York Times stories about the 1985–1986 crisis in US-Libyan relations were foreign. Television news coverage of the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf crisis also significantly utilized foreign official sources for an

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oppositional perspective (Althaus, 2003). The results of these studies indicate that such sources are becoming significant factors in foreign policy debates (Hayes & Guardino, 2010) and that “the concept of the ‘official debate’ must be expanded to include foreign elites” (Althaus et al., 1996, p. 418). Scholars believe that “power indexing” explains the selection of some international sources and the exclusion of others (Althaus et  al., 1996; Bennett, 1993; Zaller & Chiu, 1996). According to power indexing, journalists depend on sources they consider powerful and consequential on American foreign policy, regardless of their nationality (Billeadeaux et al., 2003). For example, American foreign policy is scrutinized by US allies and prominent international organizations such as the United Nations, according to Entman (2004), and their criticisms can impact coverage even when there is consensus among US government officials. Althaus (2003) found that administration sources were less dominant in stories about the Persian Gulf crisis, making up only 36% of the sources used, and only 6% of sources were Congressional. These findings, coupled with the range of sources outside the American government that were critical of US involvement in the Persian Gulf, led the study to conclude that the press isn’t as dependent on official sources as indexing suggests. However, Bennett et al. (2006) note that the pattern of indexing was evident in criticisms of the justifications and intended outcomes of US policy in the Persian Gulf. An examination of Time magazine’s coverage of the Iraq War by Harp et al. (2010) found that official sources were most often the voices of dissent. However, other sources, such as journalists, were also critical of the war and their criticism increased over the years. Thus, they believe that “in media coverage there is a tipping point where it (indexing) no longer dominates journalists’ stories” (p. 475). The authors offer this up as evidence that indexing needs refinement. However, this finding is consistent with the original proposition of indexing which states that unofficial sources are included in coverage when there is sustained disagreement among official sources. While many indexing studies have used the theory while investigating subjects closely related to foreign policy, the military, or threats of war, Groshek and Holt (2017) analyzed broadcast television network coverage of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” (DADT), a law that came to be seen as discriminatory against LGBT individuals serving in the armed forces. The researchers looked at stories on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox

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News during the 12 months preceding and after the repeal was signed into law by Barack Obama in December 2010. Surprisingly, the study found that while coverage of the repeal was positive overall, negative coverage increased significantly after DADT was repealed. Therefore, there was no evidence of indexing, which led Groshek and Holt (2017) to conclude that “on certain topics that may be both so contentious and crucial for politicking, traditional conceptions of indexing may not hold neatly in the contemporary media and political environment” (p. 201). In other words, even after there is official consensus on an issue, coverage that is critical of an already-decided issue may still occur and—at least in this case—increase. Those results are in line with research by Lawrence (1996), who found that non-official sources were prominent throughout newspaper coverage of police use of force over a five-year period. She said that unique and dramatic events, such as the videotaped beating of Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department, serve to compel journalists to expand the range of sources and opinions in their reports and that critical coverage was not strictly tied to elite conflict. Entman (2003) wrote that while indexing “quite convincingly emphasizes elite opposition as a vital determinant of whether the news will deviate from the White House line, it does not explain fully why leaders sometimes choose to contest the White House frame” (pp.  416–417). Therefore, as an extension of indexing and other similar approaches, he developed the cascading activation model. The model states that there is a hierarchy of sources in terms of their power to influence how events and issues are framed. At the highest level are presidential administration sources such as the president and his top advisors. Next are members of Congress, along with other policy experts, followed at the third level by journalists and news media organizations. The model, like indexing, acknowledges the strong influence of official sources. However, it also suggests that when there is elite disagreement, journalists have more opportunity to resist the perspective advocated by the White House (Speer, 2017). Relatedly, media coverage has also become less dependent on official views since the end of the Cold War (Entman, 2004). Entman (2003) introduced the model in a study of how the news media framed coverage in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. He found much of the reporting lined up with the Bush administration’s initial focus on the importance of invading Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq in order to win the war on terrorism. However, some articles

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countered the frame of the administration and called for investigations into the role long-time US ally Saudi Arabia might have played, given that most of the attackers were Saudis. While this perspective gained some traction because some elites also criticized Saudi Arabia, overall it remained a minor component of coverage because other officials likely felt criticizing Saudi Arabia would prove a bridge too far because it would threaten oil supplies to the United States (Entman, 2004). Nevertheless, Entman (2003) concluded that the counterframe showed that “media are not entirely passive receptacles for government propaganda” (p. 415). A critical component of the cascading activation model is its emphasis on what Entman (2004) calls “cultural congruence,” which “measures the ease with which … a news frame can cascade through the different levels of the framing process” (p. 14). The most powerful frames are those that resonate with large segments of society and are likely to activate similar thoughts and perceptions among the public. In the case of the September 11 attacks, a major reason the counterframe did not become a major component of coverage is that it lacked cultural congruence, and instead was an ambiguous matter that “was too great an ideological leap for most Republican leaders” (Entman, 2003, p.  428). Thus, according to the model, such a frame is subject to conflicting and/or unclear interpretations. Another study of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal found that despite repeated challenges to the White House’s framing of the matter, media coverage did not reflect these challenges and instead held to the messages promoted by the administration (Rowlings et al., 2011). Referring to the incident as “torture,” as Democratic officials did, was less culturally resonant because “not many Americans want to hear how bad the United States is” (Rowlings et al., 2011, p. 1058). The authors concluded that in order to understand press content, it is important to know who in the hierarchy of the cascading activation model is advocating the frame and if that frame is in sync with the public because journalists often do little to challenge the more resonant frame. However, the model also notes that journalists are motivated to include opposing viewpoints in stories about foreign affairs and that they can play an active role in framing if other official sources are contesting how the White House is framing an event or issue (Entman, 2004; Speer, 2017).

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Framing Research examining source usage, indexing, and cascading activation is also conceptually connected to framing (Carlson, 2009; Entman, 2004; Groshek, 2008; Hickerson et al., 2011), which has become an especially popular area of research for communication scholars (Cacciatore et  al., 2016; Weaver, 2007) at least in part due to its connection to journalistic practice and the routines of journalism (Chyi & McCombs, 2004; Schildkraut & Muschert, 2014; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). According to Tankard (2001), a media frame is a “central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion and elaboration” (pp.  100–101). Similarly, McCombs and Ghanem (2001) state that framing is “the construction of an agenda with a restricted number of thematically related attributes to create a coherent picture of a particular object” (p. 70), while Entman (1993), in perhaps the most well-known articulation of the term, said to frame is “to select some aspect of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment for the item described” (p. 52). Shoemaker and Reese (2014) say they regard framing as a routine in that journalists frame stories in predictable ways “because that’s what they have been trained to do and because frames help the facts make sense” (p. 176). Weaver (2007) said framing’s popularity “may have to do with the ambiguity or the comprehensive nature of the term. ‘Frame’ can be applied to many different aspects of messages and to many different types of messages” (p. 144). There is no common agreement on a specific set of frames used by journalists, and frames can be conceptualized as independent or dependent variables (Scheufele, 1999; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Given this effort’s focus on the routines of journalistic work, framing is analyzed here as a dependent variable, given the aforementioned predictability of frames used by journalists and because these frames add meaning to the content (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Numerous studies have shown that elite sources can greatly influence how coverage of issues are framed. Gitlin (1980) found this to be the case in his hallmark study of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), noting that officials are often able to establish the initial frame for a story or event. Similarly, as noted earlier, Bennett et al. (2006) found that although the Abu Ghraib scandal initially was framed as torture, the media quickly

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cast that aside and framed the story as an isolated case of abuse, as described by government officials. As noted earlier, Entman’s (2003) cascading activation model of political influence states that sources such as the president and members of the presidential administration establish the frames journalists use in their reports. Hallin (1986) said the changing opinions of elite sources about the Vietnam War were the reason for changes in how the war was covered. Relatedly, another study notes that “reporters pay special attention to the views of authoritative sources who are, in the media’s judgement, most likely to project and influence the outcome of particular policy issues” (Nacos et al., 2000, p. 47). The influence of sources on the framing of issues in areas other than politics and foreign affairs has been demonstrated as well. For example, a study of television news stories about mental health found differences in frames utilized depending on source usage. Myrick et al. (2014) said that sources cited as having depression or anxiety tended to be featured in stories adopting a gain frame, which emphasized the benefits of a particular action. Takahashi (2010) examined climate change coverage in Peruvian newspapers and reported that government officials were most prominent in coverage, resulting in stories emphasizing the positive steps taken by the government to solve any problems. Little attention was given to the science of climate change. Liebler and Bendix (1996) also found evidence of source choice influencing story frames. They examined television news coverage of whether the natural habitat for an endangered species, the spotted owl, should be exempt from logging in the Pacific Northwest. They found that in the stories expressing the “procut” frame (logging should continue) tended to utilize loggers/millworkers and government officials as sources. While a number of studies (e.g., Althaus, 2003; Bennett et al., 2006; Entman, 2003; Hickerson et  al., 2011) specifically discuss framing and indexing as being intertwined, Lawrence (2010) says indexing is distinct from framing because it “attempts to explain and predict the types of stories and voices that will receive greatest news play” (p.  269). Groshek (2008) also, at least initially, considered them theoretically distinctive from each other, even though both place great importance on source usage. He states that “Indexing orients journalistic decisions as hierarchical and subordinate to the level of consensus,” [while] “framing affords a certain level of control and agency not only to journalists but also individuals in interpreting events” (p.  316). This is perhaps most apparent when examining the emphasis much of the research on indexing places on

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the tone of coverage. According to Groshek (2008), because changes in tone of coverage emanate primarily from elite sources, tone amounts to a journalistic routine. In other words, journalists will talk to these sources whether or not their tone shifts. But, on the other hand, “changes in the focus of coverage can be controlled or dictated to some extent by journalists” (p. 317). However, his examination of coverage in the months leading up to the Iraq War found that the higher the level of governmental source consensus, the fewer substantive frames (ones describing why a policy is or is not desirable) were present in the news stories. Thus, he concluded that indexing and framing are indeed integrated, writing that “indexing provides a rationale for when certain news frames might be adopted over others, and framing provides an explanation for the voices and viewpoints that are prevalent in coverage once official consensus is achieved” (p. 334).

Consequences of the Indexing Approach of Journalists Researchers argue that indexing news leads to journalists’ abdication of their watchdog role and, in other words, their responsibility to monitor different branches of government (Harmon & Muenchen, 2009; Reese & Buckalew, 1995; Schwartz, 2004). Prior research has especially shown that in times of crisis and war, journalists’ adherence to official sources causes them to lose their position of scrutinizing administrations’ decisions and their consequences. Nevertheless, Bennett (1990) sees indexing as an acceptable routine in democratic countries. Journalists normally turn to public officials as sources of news about political and social issues. Similarly, Lawrence (2010) writes that “it seems plausible that when political institutions are working to debate important policy issue and to check and balance one another as intended, then the news that results from the indexing dynamic may be ‘enough’ democratically speaking” (p.  282). However, Bennett (1990) believes indexing does become problematic when officials’ views dominate media debates and other voices become marginalized or excluded. This dependence of journalists on official sources becomes an issue of concern when it leads news media to stop acting as an independent check on the balance of power in American politics. According to indexing theory, news media, by featuring the voices of officials and their

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narratives, give the upper hand to groups that are already in power. Journalistic routines are set in such a way that media are only likely to go against elites when other people in power have started a debate against them. Therefore, journalists are unlikely to act independently and question irresponsible officials or elites if those sources are in consensus. To put it simply, in times of consensus, officials’ narratives and their policies, whether right or wrong, remain unchallenged by the news media. Bennett (2010) argues that ignoring opposition sources in times of administrative consensus means that “the press becomes a communication arm of the government” (p. 108). Similarly, Mermin (1999) argues that journalists are quite naturally drawn to government officials because of their importance and influence on social and political events. However, he states they are likely to exclude critical perspectives that do not emanate from officials, which hinders full coverage of the range of ongoing debate about an issue. This sentiment is reinforced in somewhat starker terms by Entman and Page (1994) who write that irresponsible governmental behavior coupled with a lack of criticism from other official sources results in public ignorance about governmental faults and/or problems. Regarding foreign policy issues, indexing notes the dependence of journalists on White House sources to present American policies and their consequences to the world (Bennett, 1990; Hallin, 1986; Mermin, 1999; Zaller & Chiu, 1996). This dependence can lead to the dismissal of other American officials’ criticisms, such as members of Congress, as long as administration sources are in consensus about a foreign policy (Lewis & Rose, 2002). It also means that news media often do not act as a check against unilateral decisions made by a president, such as going to war with a nation, when there is no conflict of views in the US administration. However, it must be noted that some studies utilizing indexing have found more evidence of an independent press. The aforementioned study of DADT by Groshek and Holt (2017) discovered that after the policy was repealed coverage became even more negative, which is in stark contrast to Bennett’s (1990) seminal indexing article. In addition, Althaus’ (2003) examination of the Gulf War Crisis found “journalists frequently presented competing perspectives and views and were often the instigators rather than merely gatekeepers of critical viewpoints” (p. 402). And while the study still found overall support for governmental official views in coverage, he notes dissent is not in-and-of-itself necessarily a true

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reflection of autonomy. He believes that “If the press is truly independent, it must logically have the option to agree as well as oppose” (p. 402).

References Aday, S. (2010). Chasing the bad news: An analysis of 2005 Iraq and Afghanistan war coverage on NBC and Fox News channel. Journal of Communication, 60(1), 144–164. Alexseev, M.  A., & Bennett, W.  L. (1995). For whom the gates open. News reporting and government source patterns in the United States, Great Britain and Russia. Political Communication, 12(4), 395–412. Althaus, S. L. (2003). When news norms collide, follow the lead: New evidence for press independence. Political Communication, 20(4), 381–414. Althaus, S. L., Edy, J. A., Entman, R. M., & Phalen, P. (1996). Revising the indexing hypothesis: Officials, media, and the Libya crisis. Political Communication, 13(4), 407–421. Baker, P. (2015, March 3). In Congress, Netanyahu faults ‘bad deal’ on Iran Nuclear Program. The New  York Times. https://www.nytimes. com/2015/03/04/world/middleeast/netanyahu-­c ongress-­i ran-­i srael-­ speech.html Bennett, W.  L. (1990). Toward a theory of press-state relations in the United States. Journal of Communication, 40(2), 103–125. Bennett, W. L. (1993). Taking the public by storm: Information, cuing and the democratic process in the Gulf Conflict. Political Communication, 10(4), 331–351. Bennett, W. L. (2010). The press, power and public accountability. In S. Allen (Ed.), The Routledge companion to news and journalism (pp. 105–115). Routledge. Bennett, W. L., Lawrence, R. G., & Livingston, S. (2006). None dare call it torture: Indexing and the limits of press independence in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Journal of Communication, 56(3), 467–485. Billeadeaux, A., Domke, D., Hutcheson, J.  S., & Garland, P.  A. (2003). News norms, indexing and a unified government. Global Media Journal, 2(3). http://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-­access/news-­norms-­indexing-­ and-­a-­unified-­government-­reporting-­during-­the-­early-­stages-­of-­a-­global-­war-­ on-­terror.pdf Boczkowski, P.  J. (2004). Digitizing the news: Innovation in online newspapers. MIT Press. Breed, W. (1955). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. Social Forces, 33(4), 326–335.

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Entman, R. M., & Page, B. I. (1994). The news before the storm: The Iraq war debate and the limits to media independence. In W. L. Bennett & D. L. Paletz (Eds.), Taken by storm: the media, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy in the Gulf war (pp. 82–104). University of Chicago Press. Epstein, E. (1973). News from nowhere. Vintage. Ferrucci, P. (2018). Networked: Social media’s impact on news production in digital newsrooms. Newspaper Research Journal, 39(1), 6–18. Fishman, M. (1980). Manufacturing the news. University of Texas Press. Freedman, E., Fico, F., & Durisin, M. (2010). Gender diversity absent in expert sources for elections. Newspaper Research Journal, 31(2), 20–33. Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what’s news. Pantheon Books. Gieber, W. (1964). News is what newspapermen make it. In L.  A. Dexter & D. M. White (Eds.), People, society, and mass communications. The Free Press. Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching. University of California Press. Gordon, M. R., & Sanger, D. E. (2015, July 14). Deal reached on Iran nuclear program; Limits on fuel would lessen with time. The New York Times. https:// www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-­nuclear-­deal-­is-­ reached-­after-­long-­negotiations.html Groshek, J. (2008). Coveage of the pre-Iraq War debate as a case study of frame indexing. Media, War & Conflict, 1(3), 315–338. Groshek, J., & Holt, L. F. (2017). When official consensus equals more negativity in media coverage: Broadcast television news and the (re-)indexing of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal. Media, War & Conflict, 10(2), 189–207. Hager, L., Roy, O., Hancock, L.  E., & Ensley, H.  J. (2019). Selling the Iran nuclear agreement: Prospect theory and the campaign to frame the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Congress & The Presidency. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/0734369.2019.1600172 Hallin, D. C. (1986). The “uncensored” war. Oxford University Press. Hallin, D.  C., Manoff, R.  K., & Weddle, J.  K. (1993). Sourcing patterns of national security reporters. Journalism Quarterly, 70(4), 753–766. Haltiwanger, J. (2020, January 14). Here’s what’s in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the country withdrew from amid heightened tensions with the US. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/ iran-­nuclear-­deal-­explained Harmon, M., & Muenchen, R. (2009). Semantic framing in the build-up to the Iraq War: FOX v. CNN and other U.S. broadcast news programs. Review of General Semantics, 66(1), 12–26. Harp, D., Loke, J., & Bachman, I. (2010). Voices of dissent in the Iraq War: Moving from deviance to legitimacy? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 87(3/4), 467–483. Hayes, D., & Guardino, M. (2010). Whose views made the News? Media coverage and the march to war in Iraq. Political Communication, 27(1), 59–87.

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CHAPTER 3

Who Speaks in the Coverage of the Iran Deal in The New York Times and The Washington Post

Abstract  This chapter reports the results of two content analysis studies of The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of the Iran Deal. The first examined news stories and found that US Executive Branch sources were most heard from, while Israeli governmental sources also figured prominently. Iranian governmental sources declined significantly in use after the Deal was signed. Results of the second study which analyzed op-ed articles show that while US Executive Branch sources were most prominent, the official perspective did not control the valence of coverage. Oppositional sources remained prominent and negative statements from op-ed authors significantly increased even after a deal with Iran was reached. It concludes with analysis of the results as they pertain to indexing theory and the cascading activation model. Keywords  Iran Deal • JCPOA • Iran • News • Content analysis • Media coverage • Op-ed • Indexing • Cascading activation Researchers have stated that “no analysis of news media content is complete without a close look at the sources of that content” (Reese et al., 1994, p. 94). The two studies presented in this chapter take that statement to heart by closely focusing on the voices present in US news media stories about the Iran Deal. The sources utilized by journalists play a crucial role © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Semati et al., Iran and the American Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74900-2_3

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in how an issue is presented to the public and journalists rely on sources for context and material needed to flesh out their stories (Conrad, 1999; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Indeed, Bennett’s (1990) indexing theory places great premium on sources, particularly those in power because journalists use them to determine what perspectives are contained in coverage. Accordingly, our research also pays close attention to the valence of the viewpoints expressed by sources. Studies have shown that the tone of coverage influences societal perceptions of public issues (Bichard, 2006; McCombs et al., 2011). The method utilized is content analysis, defined by Riffe et al. (2014) as “the systematic assignment of communication content to categories according to rules, and the analysis of relationships involving those categories using statistical methods” (p. 3). Given the central importance of media content about the Iran Deal for this project and the media sociology framework adopted here, it is the most appropriate method. “Conceiving of content as a … dependent variable allows linking it to a host of contributing factors” (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016, p. 392) and, as noted earlier, media sociology considers content an outcome of a variety of forces and processes that influence its construction such as routines, values, practices, and norms (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014; Tuchman, 1978). Furthermore, some researchers have stated that quantitative content analysis is the sole method capable of assessing communication content in a logical, reliable, and valid fashion (Riffe et al., 2014). But, it bears repeating that by taking this approach, the media content analyzed here is not to be regarded as a mirror of reality, but instead as “an implicitly true indicator of social reality” (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016, p. 392). In addition, content analysis can provide an insight into what the public thinks about a given news issue (Glynn et al., 2004; Neuendorf, 2017). For example, a study by Hertog and Fan (1995) found that during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, news coverage about the likelihood of HIV transmission via insects, sneezing, and toilets significantly influenced public opinion on the issue.

News Coverage of the Iran Deal The first study examined 329 news stories published about the Iran Deal in The New York Times and The Washington Post between August 1, 2013, and June 16, 2016. The newspapers were chosen because of their status as leading, influential national newspapers and their near universal acclaim as elite, prestigious publications. Wanta and Hu (1993) note that such papers

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can have an agenda-setting effect because they frequently impact how issues are covered by other media organizations. Studying such prominent news media entities has been a hallmark of indexing research (e.g., Bennett, 1990, 1993; Dickson, 1992; Groshek, 2008; Hickerson et  al., 2011). Furthermore, both The New  York Times and The Washington Post are known for their coverage of international political news. They both devote significant staffing resources to foreign affairs reporting and are considered influential not just among the public and other news organizations but for policy makers as well (Entman, 2004; Groshek, 2008; Kim, 2000). In addition, Entman and Page (1994) note that both have “a proven record of willingness to take on the government” (p. 84). To test for indexing, the articles were divided into two time periods: August 13, 2013, to July 14, 2015, and July 15, 2015, to June 16, 2016. The August 1, 2013, starting date of Time Period #1 was chosen because Iranian president Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated soon thereafter on August 6, 2013. Then, only three days later, he called for resumption of negotiations with the United States and allies about Iran’s nuclear program. The final deal was signed on July 14, 2015. Thus, Time Period #2 marks the time period of coverage after the deal was signed. The time frame employed here is longer than that of many indexing studies and thus provides a rigorous test of indexing (Groshek & Holt, 2017).

Research Questions The following research questions were examined: RQ1: What sources are most prominent in The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran? RQ2: How prominent are US, Iranian, and other international governmental sources in The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran? RQ3: Are there differences in source prominence in The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran during the two time periods examined? RQ4: What is the distribution of positive, negative, and neutral/divided evaluative statements by sources in The New  York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran during the two time periods examined? RQ5: Are there differences in the overall distribution of positive, negative, and neutral/divided evaluative statements among source types in The

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New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran? RQ6: Are there differences in the distribution of positive, negative, and neutral/divided statements among source types in The New York Times and The Washington Post coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran during the two time periods examined?

Methodology Full keyword searches for “Iran deal” in The New  York Times and The Washington Post in the Lexis-Nexis database between August 1, 2013, and June 16, 2016, were conducted. Only articles where nuclear negotiations with Iran were the main focus or prominently featured were chosen. Letters to the editors and columns were not included in this study. The unit of analysis was evaluative statements (direct and indirect quotes) given by sources about matters or individuals related to US nuclear negotiations with Iran, including the Iran Deal, characterizations of Iran, the United States, Iranian leaders, US leaders, or the Iranian and US negotiating teams. Statements providing only descriptive, technical, or logistical information related to the US nuclear negotiations with Iran were not included. Based in part on a study by Hallin et al. (1993), the types of sources were initially coded into 43 categories. But, after initial tabulation of the results, they were collapsed into the following 27 categories: (1) US President, (2) White House/Vice President, (3) US Secretary of State, (4), US State Department, (5) Pentagon, (6) US Negotiating Team, (7) US Senator, (8) US House of Representatives, (9) Former US governmental, (10) Think Tank, (11) US Academic, (12) Lobbyist, (13) Public Opinion Polls, (14) Other US Nongovernmental, (15) governmental (other than United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Israel), (16) Iranian President, (17) Iranian Supreme Leader, (18) Other Iranian governmental, (19) Iranian Nongovernmental, (20) Iranian Foreign Minister, (21) Iranian Negotiating Team (22) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), (23) Journalists, (24) Israeli governmental, (25) Saudi Arabian governmental, (26) Unspecified, and (27) Other. The evaluative statements were coded into the following three categories for tone: (1) positive: a statement expressing support of matters or individuals related to the Iran Deal; (2) negative: a statement expressing opposition to matters or individuals related to the Iran Deal; (3) neutral/ divided: a statement that is purely informational or expressing conflicting

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or mixed information (both positive and negative) about matters or individuals related to the Iran Deal. The authors of the study served as coders. For reliability purposes, 35 stories (10.6%) were coded by two of the authors. Using Scott’s pi, the level of agreement was 0.92 for the source category variable, and 0.82 for whether the evaluative statement was positive, negative, or neutral/ divided.

Results Of the 329 (N  =  329) stories examined, 165 were published in The New York Times (n = 165, 50.1%) and 164 in The Washington Post (n = 164, 49.9%). The stories contained 2978 (N  =  2978, M  =  9.05) evaluative statements. There were 1573 evaluative statements (n  =  1573, 52.8%, M  =  9.53) in The New  York Times stories and 1405 (n  =  1405, 47.2%, M = 8.56) in The Washington Post stories. During Time Period #1, 1669 (56%) evaluative statements were made, while 1309 (44%) evaluative statements were made during Time Period #2. RQ1 addresses the overall prominence of sources in the coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran. Table 3.1 shows that US Senators were the leading source category with 391 (13.1%) of the evaluative statements. Unspecified sources made 345 (11.6%) evaluative statements, followed by Israeli governmental sources with 287 (9.6%) evaluative statements, the US President with 263 (8.8%) evaluative statements, and the US Secretary of State with 192 (6.4%). US Think Tank sources, with 147 (4.9%) evaluative statements, were the leading nongovernmental source in the news stories. RQ2 examines the prominence of US, Iranian, and other international governmental sources. US Executive Branch sources made 698 (23.4%) of the evaluative statements, while US Congressional sources made 530 (17.8%) evaluative statements (Table 3.1). In all, US governmental sources made 1228 (41.2%) evaluative statements. Iranian governmental sources combined to make 417 (14%) evaluative statements. Three Iranian governmental source types were among the top dozen individual source categories. Other Iranian governmental sources made 132 (4.4%) evaluative statements, while the Iranian Foreign Minister and Iranian President made 95 (3.2%) and 87 (2.9%), respectively (Table  3.1). Other international governmental sources made a total of

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Table 3.1  Frequency of evaluative statements by source in news stories (N = 2978) Source

Frequency Percentage

US President White House/US Vice President US Secretary of State State Department Pentagon US Negotiating Team Executive Branch Total US Senator US House of Representatives US Congressional Iranian President Iranian Supreme Leader Iranian Foreign Minister Other Iranian governmental Iranian Negotiating Team Iranian governmental Israeli governmental Saudi Arabia governmental Governmental (other than United States, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia) Former US governmental US Think Tank US Academic US Lobbyist US Public Opinion Polls Other US Nongovernmental IAEA Journalists Iranian Nongovernmental Unspecified Other

263 149 192 36 23 35 698 391 139 530 87 72 95 132 31 417 287 35 71

8.8 5.0 6.4 1.2 0.8 1.2 23.4 13.1 4.7 17.8 2.9 2.4 3.2 4.4 1.1 14.0 9.6 1.2 2.4

39 147 43 76 25 89 18 17 60 345 81

1.3 4.9 1.4 2.6 0.8 3.0 0.7 0.6 2.0 11.6 2.7

393 (13.2%) evaluative statements. Israeli governmental sources were by far the leader in this group (Table 3.1). RQ3 asks if there were differences in source prominence during the two time periods examined. Table 3.2 shows a significant overall difference (Chi-square (26, N = 2978) = 390.35 p