Media Soft War, Case Study: Media War against Iran

Today, the concept of war is not exclusively related to the tools with concrete and hard dimensions, but a number of functional new tools have been introduced into the operational settings which are of a soft nature and high efficiency. One of such tools which is currently utilized by strategists and warmongers in time of war and even prior to the outbreak of war is the media system. Media function as a double-edged sword. Having an affirmative dimension, media fulfill such functions as informing people and facilitating civil learning, on the one hand, and based on their negative dimension, they are utilized in media warfare, and other international modern wars to create crises and tensions and to capture the hearts and minds of nations, on the other. Following the initiation of “media Imperialism” and “the hegemony of media cartels”, the importance of media in fulfilling objectives doubled and accompanying military objectives, this increasing capability gave shape to a new dimension of war called “media war”. Today, media war is utilized to attack Iran. Since the enemies have repeatedly failed in their offensive attempts – a case in point is the eight-year-old sacred defense (imposed war) –, they have resorted to modern wars the pioneer of which has been media war. Aiming at developing and understanding media threats, the present study attempts to answer these questions: What is media war? What are the characteristics of the media war against Iran? What are the strategies to be utilized to cope with the media war against Iran?.