A Study On The Strategic Narratives Of Iran’s Official Media Reports On China-related Policies

Since the 21 st century,international affairs have developed in multiple directions,and the interaction and cooperation between regions have been increasing day by day.With the rapid development and popularization of mass communication technology,the media plays an increasingly important role in international political affairs—different countries can use mass media to disseminate information to guide domestic and international public opinion,posing a further impact on bilateral bilateral relations.In this context,people have a new understanding of news reports: They are increasingly regarded as a “strategic narrative”,a narrative means to achieve the specific political objectives of a country,a group or a political elite.At the same time,some Chinese and foreign scholars have obtained inspiration from the ontological security theory in the field of sociology,and pointed out that strategic narrative essentially provides support for the adoption and implementation of a country’s foreign policy by maintaining the ontological security of a country or a nation,a sense of stability and security to resist external anxiety and maintain a clear understanding of the “self”.Relations between China and Iran have been warming up in recent years.How to implement the friendly policies established between China and Iran,promote the stable development of the future relations between the two countries,and ultimately serve the respective strategic development needs of the two countries have become the primary issues that the policymakers of the two countries need to consider.To better implement policies,the people of the two countries become the key since they are the recipients and final implementers of the policy;especially in the face of competition from various voices,and when the latest policy itself has certain changes compared with the previous ones,it is even more important for the decision-makers to make timely and appropriate interpretation to the public.Therefore,as for the side of Iran,it has become a key issue to make good use of the mass media,especially the official news media,which is the mouthpiece of the Iranian government and has important influence in Iran,to explain its China-related policies to the Iranian people.This study will take the 25-year comprehensive cooperation agreement signed by China and Iran in 2021 as a representative of Iran’s new China-related policies,and take the report of the agreement by Iran’s official news agency——IRNA as the research object.This study will investigate these reports from the perspective of strategic narrative,and use ontology security theory and its relative concept of material security to analyze them,to find out the pattern of reports of Iran’s official media on Iran’s China-related policies,in order to make some practical and theoretical contributions for China-Iran cooperation and the field of international political communication.Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are conducted in this study.After processing the data,the study analyzes and explains the strategic narrative characteristics of relevant reports of IRNA on the whole,specific narrative content at three micro levels including policy,identity and international system,as well as the internal logic hidden in the narrative.Final results showed that IRNA has carried out comprehensive reports on the agreement from three narrative levels of policy,identity and international system,which forms a strong narrative,meeting the five characteristics of “strong” strategic narrative mode initiated by Dimitriu and De Graaf(2016): it clearly clarifies realistic and convincing reasons for choosing this agreement,proves the legitimacy and rationality of this agreement in both objective and subjective sense,projects the hope and prospect of success of this agreement,maintains consistency of the narrative,and conforms to the overall policy of Iran’s communication strategy.Another research finding is that in the strategic narrative of this agreement,IRNA pays equal attention to the maintenance of both physical and ontological security of Iran to support Iran’s China-related policies.Therefore,it can be said that the narrative process of IRNA on the agreement is essentially a process of continuous construction of ontological security and physical security of Iran.