Psychological Operations with a Focus on Anti-Islamism and Iranophobia in the Prominent Media of the West

This paper aims to evaluate ‘the anti-Islamism and Iranophobia discourse’ in the outstanding Western newspapers and media. The Western media have highlighted the point that there is a clear conflict between Islam and human rights. In these media, Islam is introduced as a threat and any political function of Islam is considered undesirable and irrational. On the contrary, the Westernized, secular and moderate Islam compatible with the Western democracy is promoted and advanced by them. According to many communications scholars, in the Western media, the news related to Muslim nations is often bad news including such issues as violence, hostage taking, robbery, war and conflict. Due to the failure of the West in military campaign and their inability to overthrow the Islamic Republic, they have transformed their confrontation pattern in recent years and have been focused on ‘the Iranophobia project’ which has assumed widespread media and diplomacy flavor over time. Cases of human rights violation, military nuclear program, support for terrorism, Iran's alleged involvement in the internal affairs of other countries, etc. are some examples of the West’s psychological operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are analytically examined and discussed in this paper.