Riots or revolution? A framing analysis of the Mahsa Amini protests in U.S. and Iranian media

Abstract

This study examines the framing of the Mahsa Amini protests in American and Iranian news media using a mixed-methodology approach to analyze 200 online news stories published by two news outlets from each country between 16 September 2022 and 16 December 2022. The findings show that CNN and Fox News, despite being often seen as partisan news outlets with polarized ideological views, covered the events similarly: they framed the protests positively but engaged in orientalist discourse regarding the hijab. In contrast, Iranian media; Press TV and The Tehran Times, portrayed the protests negatively as part of a foreign agenda and neglected the hijab issue. Both countries’ media coverage aligned with their home country’s governmental interests, politicizing Iranian women to serve their narratives and echoing critiques raised by postcolonial scholars on the perpetuation of the symbolic division between East and West through the use of reductivist frames. This paper provides a framework to investigate the discourses and narratives associated with the coverage of protests and feminist movements in the Middle East. The patterns outlined in this paper can help journalists assess their objectivity and reporting style of social movements and women’s issues in the Middle East for more nuanced reporting.

Keywords:

• Framing
• news
• protests
• feminism
• Iran

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Xiuli Wang (School of New Media, Peking University), for her guidance and support throughout this project. I also thank Isabelle for supporting the coding process and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback, which contributed to enriching this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Farah Mubarak

Farah Mubarak is a Ph.D. candidate at Peking University’s School of New Media. She holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Communication from Tsinghua University and a bachelor’s degree in English and Chinese from the University of Jordan.