Religion Journalism in Iran; Content Analysis of Official News Agencies in 2019

Religion has existed throughout the history of the news media, and issues related to religion have been part of the discourses of journalism. Religion has a strong presence in Iranian media too, however the relationships between journalism and religion have received less attention from researchers. This study seeks to describe religion journalism as a style of journalism in the Iranian media sphere. For this purpose, we examined religious news in official news agencies attempting to describe religion journalism from two perspectives of style (form) and content. The results of this study show that religion journalism in Iran mainly has the following characteristics; Hard news, with an objective journalism style, with inferential headlines, using the inverted pyramid method, with novelty news value and a propagation approach. In addition, in terms of content, religion journalism pays special attention to the political, social and ritual dimensions of religion while adopting a traditional discourse towards religion. The discourse of traditional religion that emphasizes the social aspects of religion, such as enjoining good and forbidding evil, and large collective rituals such as the Eid al-Fitr prayer.