Comparison of the use of religious symbols in the election campaigns of political factions

Relying on religious symbols is one of the relatively frequent behaviors of Iranian political activists in the past decades. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to identify the quantity and type of religious symbols in the election campaigns of two political factions and compare them with each other.The research method is quantitative content analysis and community research of propaganda documents related to the election of the 11th Assembly of the Islamic Council in the news-analytical sites, Eastern and Radnaq from the fundamentalist current and Asra-Iran, and the selection from the reformist current. In this research, the full census method was used and all the documents published during the election period were studied.The findings showed that, firstly, the election ads on the fundamentalist sites had a larger volume compared to the reformist sites. Secondly, while the reformers have rarely used religious symbols (57 cases); The fundamentalists have used religious symbols directly and indirectly to create a common identity among their followers and to destroy their rivals with a greater extent (483 cases). Among the immediate symbols, the symbol of "Martyr Qassem Soleimani" has been used the most. The fundamentalists have also used negative religious symbols, while their rival faction has not used these symbols.The result is that the fundamentalist movement has tried to use religious symbols in different forms to introduce itself as a religious movement and take advantage of the existing capacity in this field to gain votes and attack the rival.