Analysis of the media coverage of the assassination of Shahid Fakhrizadeh in the Iran International News Agency from the perspective of psychological operations

Psychological operations are one of the practical strategies used in soft security, which has become a powerful tool in the hands of governments and groups to influence their target area. In today's world, the media has become the main platform for psychological operations to apply policies and pressures against public opinion and politicians by competing governments. The assassination of Shahid Fakhrizadeh, during a terrorist operation, was widely reflected in the media and from the very first moments, it was at the top of the media news. Undoubtedly, the media of the Islamic Republic of Iran have also reacted after this assassination and it goes without saying that in the circumstances, these media have tried to distort and divert the public's mind from the true dimensions of the incident by using psychological operation techniques. The aim of the upcoming research is to analyze the media coverage of the assassination of Shahid Fakhrizadeh in the Iran International News Agency from the perspective of psychological operations, and with the method of qualitative content analysis, it seeks to answer these questions: How was the assassination of Shahid Fakhrizadeh reflected in the Iran International Network? And what psychological operation techniques did the Iran International network use in reflecting the news of the assassination of Shahid Fakhrizadeh? For this purpose, all the news of this network broadcasted between 2020/27/11 to 2020/05/12 have been analyzed. After coding and categorizing, it was concluded that this network has used 27 methods of psychological operations with the goals of influencing the perceptions of the Iranian people, diverting their minds, influencing the public opinion of the world, reducing the influence of Iran in the world and finally isolating Iran.