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Determining the Concept of National Development in Iranian Newspapers: Exploring Reformism and Conservatism Periods

Maryam Esfandiari*, Alireza Hosseini Pakdehi, Hadi Khaniki, Junxi Yao

School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Abstract: This paper aims to understand the concept of development in Iranian newspaper editorials during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known as reformism and conservatism periods, respectively. To this end, a quantitative content analysis of 440 editorials was carried out to investigate four dimensions of development. The findings indicated that the evolution of the development concept was varied in reformism and conservatism periods. The concept of development with indicators such as freedom of speech, dynamic communications with foreign states, and establishment of civil society were highlighted in the editorials of the press during the reformism period. Whereas, in the editorials during the conservatism period, the focus was on economic development and indicators such as targeted subsidy plans and reaching nuclear energy.

Keywords: communication and development, national development, journalism, Iran, reformism, conservatism

Received April 14, 2021; Revised May 17, 2021; Accepted May 25, 2021

Citation: Maryam Esfandiari, Alireza Hosseini Pakdehi, Hadi Khaniki, Junxi Yao, Determining the Concept of National Development in Iranian Newspapers: Exploring Reformism and Conservatism Periods. World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 7 (2). 63-67. January 2021. doi:10.12691/wjssh-7-2-4

1. Introduction

Communication plays a crucial role in the process of national development. Mass media can widen the horizons of citizens and facilitate the process of national growth [1]. They have been considered as an index and agent of change in national development [2]. Therefore, the growth of media is an indicator of development and is an influential factor in establishing national development and improving the participation of citizens [3].

A considerable amount of literature has been published on the role of newspapers in national development in Iran. However, the majority of the research in the field of development journalism in Iran only investigated news coverage of developmental events. So far, very little attention has been paid to the framing of development concepts in newspapers. To bridge this gap, current research is conducted to identify dominant frameworks of development in each period. We chose editorial as the unit of analysis because editorials are written mainly by media editors, experts, and society's intellectuals. Editorials can perfectly show the official stance of the media. Hence, the most critical priorities regarding national development can be understood through editorials. In other words, by studying editorials, we can discover the dominant opinions and discourses about national development in the country. For this purpose, we analyzed 440 editorials of the 1997-2013 period to determine the prevalent concept of development in each political period under reformist and conservative presidents.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Three Paradigms of Development

Historically, the first efforts to define national development started after World War II [4]. Specifically, modernization, dependency, and participation are three significant paradigms that have been addressed to resolve economic and social problems in developing (formerly, third-world) countries.

According to the modernization paradigm, development is a linear process from 'traditional' to 'modern' status that can be adopted from already developed countries [5]. This process constitutes a universal pattern [6]. In 1950, the concept of development was defined as economic developments [7] and highly emphasized knowledge transmission [5]. Based on this paradigm, mass media like radio and television play a crucial role in broadcasting messages to make social changes in a nation [8]. They were previously known as vehicles that transferred novel ideas and models from the western to other countries and from urban areas to the countryside (Melkote, 1991). Accordingly, studies in the communication and development area that were carried out under this paradigm mostly focused on the economy, technology, and organizational factors [7]. Daniel Lerner [9] was one of the first who analyzed the modernization in six Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan. He believed that modernization consisted of four main stages and this process could reach people in different orders and sequences. These four stages were urbanization, literacy and education, media participation, and political participation. Lerner also divided the characteristics of individuals of the transient community into three groups based on empathy, urbanization, literacy, media, and participation. In the 1960s, the classic theories of modernization, which only believed in western development, were heavily criticized due to their inconsistencies with the social and cultural characteristics of eastern nations [10].

The second paradigm of development belongs to dependency models, which is an alternative explanation of underdevelopment. This theory became popular in the 1960s as a response to the research by Raul Prebisch [11]. He found that growth in the wealth of the prosperous countries appeared to be at the expense of poorer nations [12]. In other words, this paradigm argued that underdevelopment in some countries is a consequence of the overdevelopment in other countries [13]. While the modernism paradigm was optimistic about the capabilities of communications in the development [14], dependency theories were skeptical about it. Frank [15], as one of the most influential sociologists of dependency theory, played a significant role in the development of a new paradigm. He used the term “underdevelopment” for Latin America. Frank explained the polarization of the global system by determining two types of colonial relationships that capitalist countries established with developing countries, and explained their relationships in this context. Frank believed that the relationship between the two poles was based on exploitation; the capitalist world (mother) intended to invest more and exploit cheap raw material, good labor market, and cheap labor force in underdeveloped countries regardless of their ideology, political creed, and geographical situation [16].

Whereas modernization and dependency paradigms focused only on the economic aspect of development, the third paradigm of development, participation, has a multidimensional insight into the development. Majid Tehranian [17] is among those who addressed the human aspects and believed that the definition of development should start from the human needs. He studied the spiritual aspects of human life, neglecting food, clothing, and housing. He also stated that a development course requires increased production, however, it is not an indispensable factor. In this approach, development means the procedure of optimizing a social system to meet the progressive public needs in order to reach higher levels of materialistic and spiritual welfare [17].

2.2. Definition of Development

Rogers [14] defined development as a widely participatory process of social changes intending to bring about both social and materialistic advancements including equality and freedom, for the majority of the society through the improved control of people over their environment [14]. Another outstanding definition of development was proposed by Todaro [18]. In his opinion, development was a multi-dimensional course that involved fundamental changes in the social structure, public attitudes, and national institutions, as well as the canonization of economic growth, reduction of inequality, and eradication of extreme poverty. The development should show that the social system has exited from the previous unfavorable status, and coordinated by diverse and basic needs of individuals and social groups inside the system. This definition is oriented toward a better life in materialistic and spiritual terms [18]. Another important definition is related to sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development is created versus traditional definitions of development. Besides the economic viewpoint, sustainable development deals with social and ecological aspects [19].

2.3. Reformism and Conservatism Periods

Reformism is a political party and creed in Iran, which officially appeared after the May 23rd (Khordad 2nd in Iranian calendar) election in 1997 when reformists commenced their rule set upon their victory in the seventh presidential election. Mohammad Khatami was elected as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran (I. R. Iran) with more than 20 million votes. In that period, reformists took complete power by winning the sixth parliament and the first city council elections, as well. This party was attributed to the "Second of Khordad Faction" and had control of the state for eight years and the majority of the parliament for four years. As Khatami stated, achieving a civil and rule-based society, establishing a religious democracy, and exceptional attention to the youth's issues were the main goals of the reformist party.

The conservative party is the other major political party in Iran, which was born upon political changes during and after the Islamic revolution of Iran in 1978. This party turned into the significant branch of religious conservatism in Iran after the seventh parliament election in 2004, and the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. This party is often addressed as the opposition to reformism in Iran.

2.4. Communications and Development

The development promotes a social system to meet the increasing public needs to reach higher levels of improvement, material and spiritual welfare, and prosperity [17]. Majid Tehranian believed that communication included the process of exchanging ideas via verbal and non-verbal signs which could act through ideologies, cultures, contents, and communication channels. This definition avoids focusing on the media by involving ideological formulations, cultural expressions (verbal and visual), and message contents. Besides, it extended the scope of communication channels from the primary channels (relationships among individuals) to secondary (organizational) and tertiary groups (with intermediaries). In general, the provided definition, insisting on their important role, classifies media within the broader frame of human communications. However, in previous reports in the field of development communications, the central roles in communications relied mainly on the media, neglecting the organizational communication networks and interpersonal relationships such as traditional and religious networks [17].

2.5. Research Question and Hypotheses

RQ1: Which aspects of development were highlighted the most in editorials of the press during reformism and conservatism periods?

H2: There is a significant correlation between the dimension of development in society and the political orientation of newspapers.

H3: There is a significant correlation between the approach to development in society and the political orientation of newspapers.

3. Methodology

This study employed quantitative content analysis to investigate development-related newspaper editorials published in four presidential periods in Iran from 1997 to 2013. The content analysis method is beneficial in social sciences, which attempt to understand the data not as a set of materialistic events but as symbolic phenomena, without making changes in social reality [20]. In this regard, [21] recommended three types of content analyses: a) descriptive content analysis, b) deductive content analysis, and c) communicative content analysis. Owing to the exploratory nature of the current research, we employed the descriptive content analysis method to answer the research question and test hypotheses.

3.1. Sampling and Analysis Procedure

The population of this study consisted of all the editorials published in Iranian newspapers in the 1997 to 2013 period. Based on the purposive sampling technique, 440 editorials were selected. Purposive sampling is a nonprobability sampling technique in which the researcher determines the characteristics of the sample before conducting the research. Accordingly, newspapers were selected based on their political orientation. Besides, three categories of newspapers were detected: a) state newspaper, b) newspapers emerged from a public institution, and c) newspapers emerged from the discourse of the government. Noteworthy, Iran, the state newspaper, in the reformist government, although considered as a government newspaper, was critical of the government, while in the conservatism period, it worked in line with the interests of the government. Hence, being a government press and derived from the government discourse cannot necessarily justify the advocacy of the government. Table 1 presents a sample of newspapers that were examined in the current study.

As an additional parameter, we chose the first year of each presidential period (1997, 2001, 2005, and 2009) as a base for data collection, since the distinction boundaries of each government are usually set in its first year. Then we reviewed the editorials of the first 10 days of each month.

Table 1. Selected newspapers of each presidential period

3.2. Data Collection and Data Analysis

In this research, first, the coding instruction was designed according to the research variables, and each editorial was coded based on this instruction. Then, all codes were inserted into the SPSS software for processing, and finally, the data were described and analyzed. Using this procedure, a total of 440 editorials were reviewed (236 from the reformism period, and 204 from conservatism).

3.3. Measure

Economic development: It involves the changes in economic foundations so that the outcome of such changes would primarily decrease the economic inequalities and affect the area of production, distribution, and community consumption patterns.

Political development: This dimension of action involves the improvements in the capacity of the system in fulfilling the needs of the society, structural diversity, specialization of the structures, and political participation.

Social development: It extensively tends to enhance the social status of all members of society, by raising the standard of living and providing health, housing, food, and employment.

Cultural development: It is the development of a society's cultural life to meet the cultural values so that it is harmonized with the whole system and economic and social conditions.

Approaches to development: In the current study, four approaches to development have been considered: 1) Endogenous development is a type of development that speaks of growth that is the result of the internal functioning of a system. On the contrary, exogenous development is an imitation model, according to which developing countries should employ the same development patterns as developed countries. 2) Balanced development is a type of development in which none of the four areas (economic, social, political, cultural) are considered as an infrastructure or a superstructure. In this approach, all areas are equally important in the outcome, while unbalanced development prioritizes these aspects at three micro, medium, and macro levels. 3) Vertical development or development from the above emphasizes that any change in the society is made by elites and by taking power, they can get the advantage of the elites who are less involved. On the contrary, horizontal development or bottom-up development believes in revolution and the participation of the masses, and everyone is one of its first principles. 4) Materialistic development is more focused on economic aspects and the form of this development is stable, while spiritual development puts the emphasis on areas like cultural and value issues.

4. Results

This study used content analysis to examine the representation of development concepts in two presidential periods in Iran. Both descriptive and analytical data such as the frequency tables, the percentages in the descriptive text, and the variable relationships in the deductive tests were used. Table 2 presents the frequency and percentage of each newspaper editorials.

Table 2. Frequency and percentage of editorials of each newspaper in this study

RQ1 asks which dimension of development is prominent in each political period. Table 3 illustrates the frequency and relative percentage of development dimensions in each period.

Table 3. Frequency and percentages of aspects of development in two political periods

H2 hypothesizes that there is a correlation between the prominent dimensions of development in newspaper editorials and the political orientation of newspapers. Our results showed that there was a significant correlation between dimension of development and political orientation (X² (3, N = 448) = 109.696, p = 0.001). H3, on the other hand, hypothesizes that there is a correlation between the editorial approach to development and the political orientation of newspapers. Likewise, results indicated the presence of a significant correlation between them (X² (4, N = 448) = 31.823, p = 0.002).

5. Discussion

This study was an attempt to understand the concept of development in Iranian newspaper editorials during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, known as reformism and conservatism periods, respectively. The important role of media in national development was previously studied. However, very little is known about the role of editorials in portraying the evolution of national development. In this study, analysis of the data showed that the editorials of the reformism period had a balanced and uniform view to the indicators of political development, and most of the indicators considered for political development had an appropriate distribution. Indicators such as dynamic relations with foreign states, freedom of speech, the establishment of civil society, and the ruling of the law were highly considered in this period. Remarkably, the reformist administration pursued détente policies by bringing forth the dialogue among civilizations in the world. In this period, newspapers showed considerable interest in the political orientation of development, while the indicators associated with other dimensions were less addressed. The lowest share belonged to cultural development with 12 editorials out of a total of 236 editorials.

In contrast, in the conservatism period, i.e. from 2005 to 2013, development was seen from the economic perspective. As there was a meaningful relationship between the factional affiliation of the studied newspapers and the highlighted dimension of economic development, this could be considered to be affected by the approaches and slogans of the administration in economic development and the establishment of social justice. The indicator of reaching nuclear energy was significantly more addressed than other indicators, accounting for 42% of all editorials in this period. Although reaching economic indicators could improve the country's economy, overlooking other aspects could in general slowdown the development process. Although economic development implies positive changes in the economic foundations, this aspect is only one dimension of the development and the country's independence could not solely follow the occurrence of economic development.

The reformism period started in a condition that the emphasis was only on economic development in the society. Noteworthy, the post-war situation in Iran and the need for reconstruction of the damages caused by war would make such conditions inevitable. Therefore, the first chance for addressing the political dimension of development was provided in May 1997. Mohammad Khatami entered the competition set with the slogan of political development and civil society and received a high majority of votes. Investigating the editorials of this period showed that the state newspapers and the ones raised from the discourse of the administration, which were the proponents of the administrations of their time, focused mainly on the political dimension of development. It should be noted that addressing the political indicators of development in the reformism period was not unexpected. However, no particular attention was made to indicators such as participation of women in politics, rights of ethnic and religious minorities, and human rights.

This study had potential limitations though. As the main limitation, our findings relied on a quantitative approach. Future studies following a qualitative approach are recommended to gain an in-depth understanding of the development process in Iran through the lens of newspapers. Despite its limitations, the study could certainly add to our understanding of the role of the press in the awareness of the national development process. In addition, future studies can represent the development concept addressed in newspapers during the presidency of President Rohani as a comparison with previous periods. Collectively, our research suggested several courses of action for the Iranian government to elaborate development plans that are integrated over time because achieving sustainable development requires coherent plans.

6. Conclusion

This was primarily an exploratory study, the results of which revealed that the evolution of the concept of development in Iran was not uniform in a 16-year period. In the reformism period, political development and in the conservatism period, economic development was the priority, and the administration's developmental thoughts, which were reflected in the press, indicated a clear movement from political to economic development. Furthermore, the evolution of development was not balanced in either period. Lack of coherence and balance has inevitable consequences. Development is not achieved overnight but is a phenomenon that happens in a sequential form. If each administration denies their predecessors' policies and neglects their achievements, it not only delays the evolution of development but is considered an action towards underdevelopment, as it only wastes the materials and spiritual resources of society. Therefore, the press, which is regarded as both an indicator and facility of development, should take this point into account and put the national interests as their priority regardless of their political orientation.

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