** The author wishes to express special thanks to the staff of the Middle East Section of University of Chicago Library, especially to Dr. Mohammad Tavakoli, for facilitating the data collection for this study.
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References
1.
Anthony Smith, The Geopolitics of Information: How Western Culture Dominates the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
2.
For the extent of media dependency on the "big four" see, for example, Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge, 'The Structure of Foreign News,' Journal of Peace Research1 (1965):64; Wilbur Schramm, 'International News Wires and Third World News in Asia: A Preliminary Report,' The Center of Communication Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong (1978); Vernon Sparkes, 'The Flow of News Between Canada and the United States,' Gazette55, no. 2 (1978):260.
3.
Oliver Boyd-Barrett, The International News Agencies (Beverly Hill: Sage, 1980).
4.
Gertrude J. Robinson, News Agencies and World News in Canada, the United States and Yugoslavia: Methods and Data (Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press of Fribourg, 1981).
5.
See, for example, Shahrough Akhavi, 'Institutionalizing the New Order in Iran ,' Current History86 (1987):53
6.
; Cheryl Benard and Zalmay Khalilzad , 'The Government of God': Iran's Islamic Republic (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984);
7.
Dilip Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985);
8.
and Afsaneh Najmabadi, 'Iran's Turn to Islam: From Modernism to Moral Order,' Middle East Journal 41, no. 2 (1987):202. See, in addition, Patricia Higgins and Pirouz Shoar-Ghaffari, 'Iranian Cultural Revolution As Seen Through Elementary Textbooks,' presented to the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting (Beverly Hills, CA: Nov. 1988).
9.
For an analysis of Iranian newspapers during the revolution, see Naiim Badii and Erwin Atwood, 'How the Tehran Press Responded to the 1979 Iranian Revolution,' Journalism Quarterly63, no. 3 (1986):517.
10.
The text of this press law appeared in Ettelaat, August 12, 1979.
11.
Hamid Algar (trans.) Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980).
12.
Translated by the author from the Persian text of this law, Ettelaat, October 15, 1985.
13.
See, for example, Iranian President Rafsanjani, as quoted in Marvin Zonis, 'The Rule of the Clerics in the Islamic Republic of Iran,' in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 482:85; Nikki Keddi, 'Islamic Revivalism Past and Present, with Emphasis on Iran' in Iran Since the Revolution: Internal Dynamics, Regional Conflict, and the Superpowers , ed. B. Rosen (Boulder : Social Science Monographs, 1985); Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei (Iranian spiritual leader), 'Address to the 42nd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations' (New York: Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to UN, 1987).
14.
See, M. Bayat, comments in 'General Discussion,' in The Iranian Republic and the Islamic Republic, ed. Keddie and Hoogland (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986); Ayatollah Khomeini as quoted by A. Hossain, Islamic Iran: Revolution and Counter Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985).
15.
The other major daily newspaper, Kayhan, suffered frequent and prolonged interruptions in the early years of the period under study and lost some of the prestige it had enjoyed as the more independent of the two newspapers during the revolution. Kayhan has now regained its status as a comparable daily newspaper.
16.
It should be noted here that Iranian newspapers do not publish on Fridays and there is no equivalent to American and European Sunday papers in Iran. It should be noted too that there is a two month discrepancy between the Persian and Christian calendars, so the sample for the Iranian years does not match exactly with Christian years. Also, because of the gaps in the collections of the libraries in some cases other days or months were substituted for the ideal order of the sample.
17.
Positive items deal with constructive events and developments in reducing conflict, scientific discoveries, humanitarian efforts, cooperation among nations and so on. Negative items, on the other hand, stress chaos, conflict, hostility, unrest, disaster, terror or generally political and economic failures. Items that deal with routine political events like appointments, election results, legislations, meeting of heads of state without commentary or with a balanced treatment of the outcomes were coded as neutral.
18.
See, Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi, 'The "World of the News" Study: Results of International Cooperation', Journal of Communication34, no. 1 (Winter 1984):121.
19.
Various studies show that the source of between 50 to 87% of foreign news for the majority of newspapers around the world are the four major Western agencies. See, for example, Hamid Mowlana, Global Information and World Communication (New York: Longman, 1986), p. 28.
20.
For the foreign news selection criteria, see the following theoretical studies: Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge, 'The Structure of Foreign News', Journal of Peace Research2 (1965 ):64; Einar Ostgaard, 'Factors Influencing the Flow of News,' Journal of Peace Research1 (1965):39; Al Hester, 'Theoretical considerations in Predicting Volume and Direction of International News Flow', Gazette19 (1973):238.
21.
Since the emphasis on regionalism is a characteristic of all national media systems (see, for example, Sreberny-Mohammadi, op.cit.), the prominence of the Middle East in Ettelaat's foreign coverage cannot be attributed only to an increased interest in the Arab and Islamic words.
22.
These items include stories on political processes, legislations, elections, political appointments in domestic area and items like visits of the heads of states, international meetings, negotiations or generally foreign diplomacy in international area. This category, therefore, does not include the political processes and events for countries that have their own specific category.
