This book investigates the American media coverage of the historic nuclear accord between the Isl... more This book investigates the American media coverage of the historic nuclear accord between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the world powers, commonly known as the Iran Deal. The analysis examines the sources of news and opinion expressed about the Iran Deal in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the national newscast of broadcast networks. The empirical component uses media sociology and indexing theory to determine the extent to which the media covered the topic within a framework of institutional debates among congressional leaders, the executive branch and other governmental sources. The coverage is placed within a larger historical and interpretative framework that examines the construction of Iran in both the pre-revolution news narratives and in the post-revolution American media and popular culture. The book endeavors to reveal the place Iran occupies in the American political and cultural imagination.
In this volume edited by Naren Chitty, Ramona R. Rush and Mehdi Semati, articles by Nick Couldry,... more In this volume edited by Naren Chitty, Ramona R. Rush and Mehdi Semati, articles by Nick Couldry, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Carol Winkler, Fang Yang and Ronald E. Ostman, Julia R. Fox, Annabelle Mooney, Marouf A. Hasian, Jr, Amy Reynolds and Brooke Barnett and Chris Atton address the attacks on September 11, 2001.
This book explores research, theory, method and emerging issues in the field of international and... more This book explores research, theory, method and emerging issues in the field of international and global communication.
ln 2019, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (lRIB) , the srate-owned and state-operated br... more ln 2019, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (lRIB) , the srate-owned and state-operated broadca •ting entity, began bi;oadca rin.g a spy thriller telvision seria l drama that ha b come a polarizing ct1ltural phenomenon, a controver i:il ultural production, and a hot political football. Its polarizing
Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a “hoax” on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent... more Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a “hoax” on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent article and criticizing the journal for publishing it. Sokal's hoax is said to demonstrate the corruption of the humanities. Cultural studies, multiculturalism, science ...
This article examines the impacts of Covid19 on musicians and
music professionals in the Iranian ... more This article examines the impacts of Covid19 on musicians and music professionals in the Iranian music industry, an industry that heavily depends on concerts and live performance. Placing the pandemic-related restrictions in the context of larger regulatory limitations imposed by the state, we explore how musicians navigate and exploit existing and emerging restrictions through a number of paradoxical developments. Addressing women’s presence in the Iranian music industry, we also argue that focusing exclusively on the state’s restrictions on female singers reduces women’s agency and ignores the important ways in which female musicians challenge existing restrictions and create opportunities for themselves.
... If the point is to stress that some of the cultural imperialism arguments needed empirical ve... more ... If the point is to stress that some of the cultural imperialism arguments needed empirical verification, Fred Fejes (1981) made that ... Norbert Wildermuth investigates Indian satellite television as a site where notions of national culture, modernity, national sovereignty, and Western ...
To cite this article: Mehdi Semati & Piotr M. Szpunar (2018) ISIS beyond the spectacle: communica... more To cite this article: Mehdi Semati & Piotr M. Szpunar (2018) ISIS beyond the spectacle: communication media, networked publics, terrorism, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 35:1.
This book investigates the American media coverage of the historic nuclear accord between the Isl... more This book investigates the American media coverage of the historic nuclear accord between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the world powers, commonly known as the Iran Deal. The analysis examines the sources of news and opinion expressed about the Iran Deal in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the national newscast of broadcast networks. The empirical component uses media sociology and indexing theory to determine the extent to which the media covered the topic within a framework of institutional debates among congressional leaders, the executive branch and other governmental sources. The coverage is placed within a larger historical and interpretative framework that examines the construction of Iran in both the pre-revolution news narratives and in the post-revolution American media and popular culture. The book endeavors to reveal the place Iran occupies in the American political and cultural imagination.
In this volume edited by Naren Chitty, Ramona R. Rush and Mehdi Semati, articles by Nick Couldry,... more In this volume edited by Naren Chitty, Ramona R. Rush and Mehdi Semati, articles by Nick Couldry, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Carol Winkler, Fang Yang and Ronald E. Ostman, Julia R. Fox, Annabelle Mooney, Marouf A. Hasian, Jr, Amy Reynolds and Brooke Barnett and Chris Atton address the attacks on September 11, 2001.
This book explores research, theory, method and emerging issues in the field of international and... more This book explores research, theory, method and emerging issues in the field of international and global communication.
ln 2019, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (lRIB) , the srate-owned and state-operated br... more ln 2019, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (lRIB) , the srate-owned and state-operated broadca •ting entity, began bi;oadca rin.g a spy thriller telvision seria l drama that ha b come a polarizing ct1ltural phenomenon, a controver i:il ultural production, and a hot political football. Its polarizing
Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a “hoax” on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent... more Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a “hoax” on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent article and criticizing the journal for publishing it. Sokal's hoax is said to demonstrate the corruption of the humanities. Cultural studies, multiculturalism, science ...
This article examines the impacts of Covid19 on musicians and
music professionals in the Iranian ... more This article examines the impacts of Covid19 on musicians and music professionals in the Iranian music industry, an industry that heavily depends on concerts and live performance. Placing the pandemic-related restrictions in the context of larger regulatory limitations imposed by the state, we explore how musicians navigate and exploit existing and emerging restrictions through a number of paradoxical developments. Addressing women’s presence in the Iranian music industry, we also argue that focusing exclusively on the state’s restrictions on female singers reduces women’s agency and ignores the important ways in which female musicians challenge existing restrictions and create opportunities for themselves.
... If the point is to stress that some of the cultural imperialism arguments needed empirical ve... more ... If the point is to stress that some of the cultural imperialism arguments needed empirical verification, Fred Fejes (1981) made that ... Norbert Wildermuth investigates Indian satellite television as a site where notions of national culture, modernity, national sovereignty, and Western ...
To cite this article: Mehdi Semati & Piotr M. Szpunar (2018) ISIS beyond the spectacle: communica... more To cite this article: Mehdi Semati & Piotr M. Szpunar (2018) ISIS beyond the spectacle: communication media, networked publics, terrorism, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 35:1.
This paper examines the elite discourse on technology in Iran. The paper examines how concepts su... more This paper examines the elite discourse on technology in Iran. The paper examines how concepts such as progress (taraqqi), civilization (tamaddon), and modernity (tajaddod), and later notions such as backwardness ('aqab-mandegi), authenticity (isalat), and " Westoxication " (gharbzadegi) have articulated an elite discourse of technology in Iran. The paper argues that a utilitarian view of technology dominates the elite discourse. Although intellectuals view modernity with ambivalence, their outlook on technology remains utilitarian in their discourse of authenticity. Keywords Iran – technology – progress – authenticity – backwardness
Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a "hoax" on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent... more Physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a "hoax" on the journal, Social Text, by submitting a fraudulent article and criticizing the journal for publishing it. Sokal's hoax is said to demonstrate the corruption of the humanities. Cultural studies, multiculturalism, science studies, feminism, and "new social movements" have all come under attack. Analysis of coverage of this affair reveals evidence of a dis-ease with contemporary theory in the humanities that challenges allegiances to an oversimplified conception of the relationship between reality and representation. The Sokal Affair is overdetermined by four currents: anti-liberalism, anti-intellectualism, debates among the left about what constitutes a legitimate left, and the often-perceived incompatibility of the scientific world view with humanistic views of the world. The totalitarian response rewealed in this incident-similar in form to the earlier de Man scandal-seeks to cleanse the culture of this dis-ease.
This article argues that it is important for scholars in our field to address religion. It argues... more This article argues that it is important for scholars in our field to address religion. It argues that a major pitfall in this endeavor is the problem of essentializing religion, particularly Islam. On the one hand, there has been a tendency to embrace Islam as an overriding explanatory framework. On the other, there has emerged a tendency to vilify religion and to attribute to it a range of issues that are not supported by empirical evidence. In either case, the logic that structures this discourse insists on cultural and religious distinctions in order to bestow on Islam the status of an ontological category. Using Iran as a case study, this article examines essentialization of Islam at work.
Excerpt from the Review
This book in its way is a landmark publication. It is a collection of ... more Excerpt from the Review
This book in its way is a landmark publication. It is a collection of extremely useful essays on modern media culture in Iran by active Iranian social science researchers teaching at Iranian institutions of higher education (with only four exceptions: the well-known scholars Hamid Naficy, Laudan Noushin, Babak Rahimi and Majid Tehranian. The editor, Mehdi Semati, is also located in the United States). There is nothing else quite like it.
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music professionals in the Iranian music industry, an industry that
heavily depends on concerts and live performance. Placing the
pandemic-related restrictions in the context of larger regulatory
limitations imposed by the state, we explore how musicians navigate
and exploit existing and emerging restrictions through a
number of paradoxical developments. Addressing women’s presence
in the Iranian music industry, we also argue that focusing
exclusively on the state’s restrictions on female singers reduces
women’s agency and ignores the important ways in which female
musicians challenge existing restrictions and create opportunities
for themselves.
music professionals in the Iranian music industry, an industry that
heavily depends on concerts and live performance. Placing the
pandemic-related restrictions in the context of larger regulatory
limitations imposed by the state, we explore how musicians navigate
and exploit existing and emerging restrictions through a
number of paradoxical developments. Addressing women’s presence
in the Iranian music industry, we also argue that focusing
exclusively on the state’s restrictions on female singers reduces
women’s agency and ignores the important ways in which female
musicians challenge existing restrictions and create opportunities
for themselves.
religion and to attribute to it a range of issues that are not supported by empirical
evidence. In either case, the logic that structures this discourse insists on cultural and
religious distinctions in order to bestow on Islam the status of an ontological category.
Using Iran as a case study, this article examines essentialization of Islam at work.
This book in its way is a landmark publication. It is a collection of extremely useful essays on modern media culture in Iran by active Iranian social science researchers teaching at Iranian institutions of higher education (with only four exceptions: the well-known scholars Hamid Naficy, Laudan Noushin, Babak Rahimi and Majid Tehranian. The editor, Mehdi Semati, is also located in the United States). There is nothing else quite like it.