Iran’s Islamic Revolution has been the focus of intellectuals and scholars’ attention due to its constructive ideology and political structure being based on the tenet of “Velayat Faqih” (Islamic Jurisprudence).
This article addresses one of the current most significant issues on Islamic Revolution’s ideology (Shia Islam), i. e. its media representation. Therefore, Washington Post, one of the most US influential print media, is chosen and examined during two sensitive period of time, i. e. 1980 and 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with Norman Fairclough approach has been used as the research methodology. Islamic Revolution’s ideology representation has been analyzed based on “West and Others”, “Orientalism”, “Covering Islam”, and “Tradition & Modernity” discourses and principles of Shia Islam.
The findings indicate that stereotyping, antithetical dualism, and stigmatization coming out of “West and Others”, “Orientalism”, and “Covering Islam” discoursesrepresent Islamic Revolution’s ideology in contradiction to such Shia Islam principles as “supreme leader”, “Velayat Fiqih”, “rejection of arrogance”, “rejection of oppression”, “fighting God’s enemies”, “wisdom” and “political experience”. Other techniques are simplification in “covering Islam” discourse, in which a simple and wrong image of government structure is represented. This approach is in contradictory to one of the Islamic Revolution ideology principle, i. e. wisdom and political experience. Furthermore, the consistent use of “I”, the author, in the articles brings about adversary and deficient discourses about the Islamic Revolution’s ideology.