Lenses of Iran’s Role in Syria’s Conflict through a Comparison between BBC and Sputnik: News Approaches from Revisionist, Multilateral, and Counter-Hegemonic Discourse

Abstract

Syria’s domestic dissent created the foundation for the country’s civil conflict, where foreign actors have favored the different sides since the 2011 Arab Spring. Iran was invited to play an active role in the conflict owing to the declining fortunes of the Syrian government. Iran welcomed the opportunity and understood that it suited its foreign policy priority to endorse the counter-hegemony approach in the MENA region in addition to maintaining the country’s political stability. It is essential to analyze how international media outlets covered Iran’s role in Syria. This study addressed the news coverage provided by Great Britain’s BBC and Russia’s Sputnik—two news agencies from two distinct geopolitical sides—both of which have Persian news outlets covering Iran’s role in the Syrian conflict. The foreign policy goals pursued by Iran aim at two different approaches: revisionism and multilateral partnership. Conducting a critical discourse analysis review of the news sources this study sought to demonstrate that the mass media attempt to engineer public consent in armed conflicts. According to the findings, the news agencies attempted to influence the policy preferences to adopt a peaceful architecture or try to induce a consent-driven perception in line with the foreign policy priorities set by their countries of origin.