Examining the media approach of two prominent Iranian political currents to the protests of the American people after the assassination of George Floyd and evaluating some of its consequences from the perspective of international interactions

The assassination of George Floyd, had various consequences both inside the United States and byound. The media coverage of this event was influential both in generating numerous protests and leading to important developments inside and outside the US. The present article examines this incident and the subsequent anti-racism protests in the United States, through the media coverage of two well-known political faction in Iran. The present study is based on qualitative content analysis method and collecting data from selected media on reaction of two important political faction in Iran towards the said event in the US, and while describing the performance of these media and providing some statistics and meaningful quantitative data in this field, presents an analysis of data from the perspective of purposeful highlighting theory and finally, speculates about the performance of the Iranian media about the two well-known political factions, regardless of the explicit and implicit messages they had for domestic audiences and international relations, at five discussed level. The findings of this study show that the structure of the media in Iran and the relationship of the media with the official authorities of the country, has an undeniable impact on the way of reflecting the protests after the killing of George Floyd and undermining of their professional neutrality and independence in covering the events taken place in the United States. The Iranian media coverage of the events in the United States as a symbol of systematic and pervasive discrimination and a sign of the collapse of the liberalism and in contrast to disregarding many events and the limited coverage of events as occasional protests in a democratic society, and indirect reference made about our own domestic situation and dealing with popular protests, are two approaches that have been reflected in Iranian media about the fundamentalist and reformist factions. Each of these approaches have some meaningful commonality and difference with media in other countries.