Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 26

and the emergence of private media
were suppressed, which left many
Iranian journalists and writers no
venue to publish their work.20 Of
0.8
note, at the time, the state-run radio
and television system was the second-largest broadcaster in all of Asia.
0.6
Every household had a radio, and 70
percent had a television set.21
The lack of venues for public
0.4
discourse led all sectors of Iranian
society to seek alternatives. One
0.2
consequence was that the mosques
in every neighborhood became social
platforms for exchanging ideas,
0.0
somewhat similar to how social
Vertical media sources Horizontal media sources
Personal history and
preferences
media connect people today. The
expanded significance of the mosque
as a place of discourse, exchange
2008 U.S. Presidential
2012 U.S. Presidential
1968 U.S. Presidential
Election
Election
Election
of ideas, and debate enabled communities to set their own agendas
horizontally, among friends, neighFigure 5. Agenda Community Attraction Scores bors, relatives, and peers. Most often,
for All Voters in Three Elections
these agendas ran counter to the topdown disseminated agenda of the
and television—were under the control of the monshah. As a result, dissatisfied communities began to
arch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, who used
form and organize around agendas of shared views
them to orchestrate development of the “great civilizaover issues resulting in the beginnings of organized
tion” under the direction of government policy.18 The
opposition to the government. It was tinder waiting
shah ’s great civilization policy—sometimes called the
for a spark. As depicted in figure 4, Iran was sliding
Westernization of Iran—was a series of reforms, initiatdown the vertical media agenda from dominant staed by his father Reza Shah Pahlavi, aimed at modernizbility toward what, it turned out, was a transitional
ing and secularizing the Iranian society. To enforce social period, and then a revolution.
change, the shah attempted to use mass media—which
he controlled—to stigmatize as backward the traditional
Example of using a “New” Medium
values and ways of Iranian communities in contrast to
to Foment Revolt
the supposedly forward-looking and progressive values of
The exiled dissident Ayatollah Ruhollah
the West. One of the unintended effects was to create a
Khomeini, who later became the leader of the Iranian
sense of frustration and inferiority among many Iranian
Revolution, used one of the new and most advanced
citizens, especially among the Iranian intelligentsia as
transportable technologies available to the public
well as the clerical class, which in turn created a wellat the time—audiocassette tapes—to disseminate
spring of bitter resentment against both the shah and the his revolutionary messages among the increasWest in general.19
ingly discontented Persian population.22 Most of
Although the demand for newspapers was growKhomeini’s messages sent from exile (in Iraq from
ing during this time period as a result of an increas1963 to 1978 and in France from 1978 to 1979) came
ingly better-educated population, the circulation of
recorded on audiocassette tapes smuggled into Iran
daily newspapers was not. Instead, the public dissent and then reproduced or transcribed and copied for

Correlation

1.0

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November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW