Table Of ContentThe puzzle of how a vibrant civil society has continued to thrive under a
theocratic Islamic state in Iran has long baffled many scholars and analysts
of Iranian politics. This wide-ranging collection of essays by a group of
young scholars, based mostly in Iran, provides the most informative ana-
lysis of this complex relationship between the society and the state in Iran
by exploring the role of the media (including the press, television, cinema,
the internet, etc.), music, popular literature, and gender relations. It offers
fresh perspectives on the contemporary Iranian political culture – as well as
politics of culture – in the postrevolutionary period and should be of great
interest to students of Middle East politics, communications theory, and
cultural studies.
Ali Banuazizi, Professor of Political Science, Boston College, and Past
President of the Middle East Studies Association
Iran is often seen as a series of frozen images, with angry clerics and anti-
American shibboleths being the byproducts of a stultifying theocratic order.
In this path-breaking book, a different Iran comes to life, as a number of
authors challenge the prevailing impressions. From the politics of the
internet to disquisition of religious discourse in the seminaries, Media,
Culture and Society in Iran opens new vistas into this most complex of
countries. For anyone interested in understanding the Islamic Republic, its
tribulations and contradictions, its promises and ideals, there is simply no
better guide.
Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations, author of Hidden Iran:
Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic
If the world needed any reminder that Iranians, like any other people, are
busy resisting domestic tyranny, defying globalized imperialism, and
mapping out the contours of their own place in history, Mehdi Semati’s
judiciously edited volume is here to respond to that need. Through a suc-
cession of brilliant first hand accounts on media, culture, and civil society in
Iran, the essays capably collected in this volume cut through the mind-
numbing clichés that think tank analysts and their native mis-informers
have fed the public at large. The rambunctious Iranian press, a thriving
internet culture, the politics of its youths, their arts and music, the import-
ance of satellite TV, a globalized cinema, the inner dynamics of a grassroots
women’s movement, and innumerable other minutiae of a struggling
cosmopolitan culture come to life in this unprecedented and deeply
informative book.
Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and
Comparative Literature, Columbia University,
author of Iran: A People Interrupted
Media, Culture and Society in Iran
Media, Culture and Society in Iran offers a truly multidisciplinary approach to
contemporary media and culture in Iran.
By exploring topics such as the Internet, print press, advertising, satellite tele-
vision, video, rock music, literature, cinema, gender, religious intellectuals, and
secularism, this unique and wide-ranging volume explains Iran as a complex
society that has successfully managed to negotiate and embody the tensions of
tradition and modernity, democracy and theocracy, isolation and globalization,
and other such cultural-political dynamics that escape the explanatory and ana-
lytical powers of all-too-familiar binary relations.
Featuring contributions from among the best-known and emerging scholars
on Iranian media, culture, society, and politics, this volume uncovers how the
existing perspectives on post-revolutionary Iranian society have failed to appre-
ciate the complexity, the paradoxes, and the contradictions that characterize life
in contemporary Iran, resulting in a general failure to explain and to anticipate
its contemporary social and political transformations.
Mehdi Semati is Associate Professor of Communication at Eastern Illinois Uni-
versity. He has written on international communication, cultural politics of
transnational media, and Iranian media.
Iranian studies
Edited by Homa Katouzian
University of Oxford
and
Mohamad Tavakoli
University of Toronto
Since 1967 the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) has been a
leading learned society for the advancement of new approaches in the study of
Iranian society, history, culture, and literature. The new ISIS Iranian Studies
series published by Routledge will provide a venue for the publication of ori-
ginal and innovative scholarly works in all areas of Iranian and Persianate
Studies.
1 Journalism in Iran 4 Media, Culture and Society in
From mission to profession Iran
Hossein Shahidi Living with globalization and the
Islamic state
2 Sadeq Hedayat Edited by Mehdi Semati
His work and his wondrous world
Edited by Homa Katouzian
3 Iran in the 21st Century
Politics, economics and conflict
Homa Katouzian and
Hossein Shahidi
Media, Culture and Society
in Iran
Living with globalization and the
Islamic state
Edited by Mehdi Semati
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
© 2008 Selection and editorial matter, Mehdi Semati; individual chapters,
the contributors
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-93483-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–77216–8 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–93483–0 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–77216–7 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93483–8 (ebk)
To my son Armin:
I hope when he is old enough to read this book, he will and be
proud.
Contents
Notes on contributors ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xiv
Living with globalization and the Islamic state: an
introduction to media, culture, and society in Iran 1
M E H D I S E M A T I
PART I
New and old media in Iran 15
1 The Iranian press, state, and civil society 17
G H O L A M K H I A B A N Y
2 The politics of the Internet in Iran 37
B A B A K R A H I M I
3 Youth, politics, and media habits in Iran 57
K A V O U S S E Y E D - E M A M I
4 The language of rock: Iranian youth, popular music, and
national identity 69
L A U D A N N O O S H I N
5 The politics of satellite television in Iran 94
F A R D I N A L I K H A H
6 The Iranian moral panic over video: a brief history and
a policy analysis 111
M A H M O O D S H A H A B I
