Capturing Hearts: The Coverage of Iran's Charm Offensive during the 2015 Nuclear Deal Negotiations in the American and Israeli Press

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the “charm offensive” of the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal negotiations with the United States. Charm offensives are strategic public relations campaigns that political leaders use to shift their countries’ reputation swiftly and temporarily in the global arena. Based on visual and textual analysis of the journalistic coverage of Zarif's charm offensive in the American and the Israeli press, we show that in his interactions with the American team and announcements to the press, Zarif focused on the future in contrast to the confusing past; he aimed at a calm and narrowly focused process of negotiations and preferred closed-door discussions among experts and one-on-one conversations with Secretary of State Kerry over public press conferences. He warmly welcomed photographers with smiles and presented a persistent readiness for “friendly” interaction. Western journalists enthusiastically covered these “unexpected” features of the Iranian diplomacy, and ultimately helped Zarif achieve a favorable international media environment conducive to making the deal. Bringing together literatures in communication studies, sociology, political science and international relations, we argue that in the form of a “charm offensive” political leaders can thus utilize the press for momentary country image transformation internationally.