According to Dr. Nasim Majidi, professor of communication and media studies, during the 12-day war, media outlets entered the arena as \u201ckey instruments capable of generating pressure and initiating psychological warfare\u201d. As she explained, media performance in virtually every war follows a familiar pattern, whereby each side endeavors, through the optimal utilization of its media tools and capacities, to reinforce its military strength and attain superiority over the opposing side. From this perspective, she assessed the performance of Iranian media as highly satisfactory, emphasizing their success in accurately presenting battlefield realities and offering a \u201ctruthful and precise depiction\u201d of events unfolding in the theater of combat. <\/p>\n Afifeh Abedi<\/strong><\/p>\n Turning to the broader analytical dimension, Afifeh Abedi, CEO of IranView24 News Agency and researcher of international relations at the Center for Strategic Research, emphasized that one of the decisive components of contemporary wars and crises is the \u201cwar of narratives,\u201d a dimension that played a particularly prominent role in the recent confrontation between Iran and Israel. Contemporary wars, in the present era, transcend the domain of the physical battlefield and have evolved into a serious arena for media confrontation, narrative rivalry, and the control of public opinion. A review of the experience of the Israeli-imposed 12-day war and the events following it once again demonstrated that media outlets, as pivotal instruments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,70,71,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis-and-notes","category-conversation","category-important-news","category-most-viewed-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3118,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099\/revisions\/3118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-24-163148-224x300.png\")
Nasim Majidi\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nDuring the conflict, she noted, Iranian media operated in a manner that made the country\u2019s military power \u201cfaithfully and conspicuously visible\u201d to adversaries. \u201cAt the same time, the capabilities displayed were entirely consonant with reality.\u201d
\nOne of Iran\u2019s principal strengths in the war, she observed, lay in the brilliant functioning of its media ecosystem, encompassing state-owned, non-state outlets, other media institutions, and even activity within cyberspace. From this standpoint, she argued, Iranian media deserve a \u201cvery high evaluative score\u201d.
\nShe further emphasized that, during wartime, Iranian media exhibited \u201cexceptional rapid responsiveness\u201d in reporting developments, while simultaneously delivering reports of notably high quality. Of particular importance, in her view, was the presentation of Iran\u2019s defensive and combat capabilities, which, day by day, unfolded with \u201cnew and unexpected dimensions,\u201d demonstrating the extent to which the country\u2019s armed forces are capable of protecting national security and inflicting effective blows upon the enemy.
\nAddressing what she described as the psychological dimension of warfare, namely \u201cthe media game itself,\u201d Majidi explained that each side typically seeks to depict the opposing side\u2019s military capability as diminished and ineffective. Iranian media, however, deliberately avoided this approach, instead concentrating on the presentation of their own strengths. \u201cThis strategic choice,\u201d she maintained, \u201cconstituted a highly effective factor\u201d in securing victory within the psychological battlefield.
\nFrom Majidi\u2019s perspective, Iranian media clearly outperformed their adversaries in this war. By highlighting domestic strengths, we, in effect, exposed the opposing side\u2019s weaknesses and maintained narrative superiority. A particularly valuable aspect of this achievement, she stressed, was the \u201cunity and solidarity\u201d demonstrated among Iranian media organizations. Within the media war, this cohesion enabled Iran to attract public attention and opinion, while simultaneously neutralizing the psychological pressure the other side intended to exert in order to disrupt public solidarity and alignment with domestic media.
\nShe also acknowledged that war, by its nature, inflicts destruction and damage upon both sides, making it inaccurate to claim that only one party inflicted harm. Nevertheless, she asserted with confidence that Iranian media, by presenting \u201cfacts and realities,\u201d ultimately revealed \u201cthe winning card\u201d. When comparing the media performance of both sides, she concluded that Iranian media were far superior, particularly due to their ability to align global public opinion with Iran. After the war, she added, Iranian outlets continued to effectively portray Zionist aggression as \u201cthe initiator of the war\u201d.
\nThis stood in stark contrast, she observed, to efforts by Western and Zionist media to \u201cwhitewash the image\u201d of the Zionist regime, by suggesting that only military targets were struck by Israel, and that civilian areas and ordinary Iranians were unharmed. Reports and images disseminated by Iranian media, depicting the destruction of residential neighborhoods and the killing of civilians, including children, clearly exposed the falsity of these claims and once again unveiled the \u201csavage visage\u201d of the Zionist regime.
\nLooking ahead, Majidi argued that, should Iranian media continue to operate in this manner, many of the crises and challenges confronting the country would be alleviated. \u201cWhere we become pioneers in revealing truths,\u201d she explained, the adversary\u2019s capacity for exaggeration and baseless claims is curtailed. Such an approach, Majidi concluded, offers a \u201chighly suitable model\u201d that can be replicated to ensure that media authority and capacity remain firmly under national control.<\/p>\n
\nShe recalled that the Zionist regime, years before launching its \u201caggressive attack\u201d against Iran, had undertaken extensive investments in media infrastructure and in the promotion of anti-Iranian narratives. Despite this, she identified the \u201cintrinsic illegitimacy of the war\u201d as one of the most critical factors strengthening Iran\u2019s narrative during the imposed 12-day war. Numerous polls, she noted, revealed that Israel\u2019s war propaganda encountered \u201cmeaningful opposition\u201d within public opinion, particularly at regional and global levels. Conversely, Iran\u2019s legal and political framework, grounded in the concept of giving a \u201clegitimate, limited, and deterrent response,\u201d enjoyed broader acceptance.
\n\u201cIn West Asia, in particular, public support for Iran\u2019s decisive military responses was striking. One visible manifestation of the recent war, she added, was the expression of joy by Arab, and even American and European, social media users following the impact of Iranian missiles on Israeli targets.\u201d
\nDrawing a parallel between military and narrative dimensions, Abedi explained that, just as the recent military confrontation was \u201casymmetric,\u201d the war of narratives also unfolded asymmetrically. Iran faced a regime backed by \u201cfull political, military, and media support\u201d from NATO and certain regional actors. Nevertheless, what reinforced Iran\u2019s narrative, she argued, was not structural investment in media or public diplomacy, but rather the \u201cintrinsic legitimacy of resistance\u201d against an aggressive regime.
\nAt the same time, she acknowledged that Iran has not engaged in systematic and sustained investment in media and public diplomacy. A substantial portion of Iran\u2019s strengthened public diplomacy, she explained, derives instead from Israel\u2019s \u201cseverely tarnished and widely detested image\u201d in global public opinion, particularly following the Gaza war, the perpetration of war crimes and genocide against Palestinians, subsequent warmongering against Iran, the attack on Qatar, and the continuation of aggressive actions in Syria and Lebanon.
\nAccording to Abedi, global public opinion is now aware that the Zionist regime invokes claims of confronting Iran\u2019s \u201cpeaceful nuclear program\u201d to justify military action, despite the fact that Iran does not possess an atomic bomb, while Israel maintains a \u201cnon-transparent nuclear arsenal\u201d outside the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
\nShe further noted that Israel has spent \u201cmillions of dollars\u201d in the war of narratives to recruit American celebrities and influencers. Nevertheless, she expressed hope that, within this \u201cunequal media confrontation,\u201d global perception of the occupying and warmongering nature of the Zionist regime would continue to expand, particularly as the regime perceives its own existence as dependent upon the \u201cintensification of crises\u201d.
\nAssessing the broader confrontation, Abedi argued that, when considering the various dimensions of asymmetric warfare in June 2025, and the level of preparedness of the Zionist regime and the United States against an \u201cIran preparing for a new round of nuclear negotiations,\u201d Iran, despite encountering operational surprise, succeeded in maintaining \u201cthe upper hand\u201d within the narrative battlefield.
\nAt the levels of \u201cframing\u201d and \u201ccontrol of the escalation of the narrative war,\u201d she observed, Iran performed more effectively than Israel. Israel\u2019s strategy relied upon exploiting Western mainstream media to transform a \u201cWestern-Zionist consensus\u201d into a regional and global one, an objective that ultimately failed due to widespread regional and global public support for Iran\u2019s legitimate response. Nevertheless, she cautioned that Iran must exert greater effort to preserve this social base and translate it into \u201csustainable and goal-oriented public diplomacy.\u201d For this reason, she concluded, Iran\u2019s success in achieving enduring \u201cmedia deterrence\u201d cannot yet be considered permanent. \u201cEven so, Iran has managed, at this stage, to increase the perceptual cost of renewed escalation for the Israeli side.\u201d
\nReferring to the failure of Western and pro-Zionist media to \u201cinvert the realities of the war,\u201d Abedi attributed this outcome to the ubiquity of social networks and the rising level of global awareness regarding the expansionist, exploitative, and hegemonic policies of the United States and Israel, developments that have weakened, and in some cases defeated, \u201cpro-Zionist media distortions\u201d.
\nWithin this context, she explained, attempts to \u201cdownplay Israeli losses,\u201d while simultaneously \u201camplifying the Iranian threat,\u201d have entered a new phase. The dominant emerging narrative, advanced by Western-Zionist media and think tanks, revolves around 2 principal axes: first, the claim that Iran is inclined toward a \u201cpreemptive attack,\u201d due to the experience of surprise in the June war and concerns regarding renewed Israeli aggression; and second, the amplification of alleged social and economic protests within Iran to facilitate destabilizing policies. Together, these axes constitute a component of \u201cpsychological and perceptual warfare\u201d against Iran, to which Iran has thus far largely entrusted its response to public awareness and perception.
\nFinally, emphasizing the necessity of redefining and strengthening Iran\u2019s public diplomacy, Abedi stressed that Iran must reinforce its public diplomacy in a \u201ctargeted and active manner,\u201d focusing on domestic, regional, and global public opinion, particularly in the United States and Europe. Achieving this goal, she argued, requires the systematic production and dissemination of \u201cdocumented data and narratives\u201d concerning the warmongering actions of Israel, the United States, and their supporters, as well as the historically recurrent betrayals of the United States at the negotiating table, across diverse media platforms and social networks. Without such a redefinition, she concluded, the \u201ctemporary achievements\u201d of the war of narratives cannot be consolidated or transformed into sustainable deterrence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"