NEWS AS IDEOLOGY:A COMPARATIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF WESTERN AND EASTERN MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE IRAN PROTESTS

Abstract

The present study examines how Western and Eastern international news discursively construct the Iranian protests using Teun A. van Dijk’s framework of News as Discourse (1988). The nature of the protests is widely reported as a political and humanitarian crisis. There is very little research present on the comparative exploration of the structure of the media coverage at multiple discursive levels in different geopolitical media outlets. A qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to the research for analyzing the four English-language news articles that are published during the peak of the protest in Iran by CNN, BBC News, Al Jazeera, and TRT World.  The analysis process consists of five interrelated levels: first, macrostructures (the global thematic priorities), superstructures (the news schemata), microstructures (the lexical choices and the agency), rhetorical strategies (problem selection and epistemic positioning), and the interpretation of ideological structures. The findings of the study reveal there are systematic differences in how the presentations of protests are across different outlets. The Western media emphasizes the moralized and politically charged narratives that forefront the international intervention, repression, and legitimacy of the situation. Eastern media, on the other hand, prioritizes the regional context, the structural causality, and state sovereignty. These ideological interventions are realized by a specific organization and pattern of discourse, not by the overt editorial commentary. This research contributes to the critical media scholarship by applying Van Dijk’s discourse model to a comparative geopolitical context. It helps in illustrating how international news reporting serves as a key site of the production of ideological structures. The findings show the role of international media in shaping public perceptions regarding political protests. These findings emphasize the importance of discourse-based approaches to analyzing the representation of power and ideology in global media.