The War of Narratives as an Excuse to Escape the Reality of Protests
The War of Narratives as an Excuse to Escape the Reality of Protests These days, conservatives and their media affiliates frequently beat the drum of something they call the war of narratives. They believe that what some media outlets republish as external reality and truth is nothing but a war of narratives or a media war. Based on this, they completely deny the existence of any real identity for the opposition, dissent, and protests, and they believe that it is these media narratives that give identity, direction, and shape to these protests.
They say we have lost the media war. Of course, there is a kind of deflection in this claim, as they want to say that everything else we do is fine, and it is only in this war that we have lost. This loss is the result of unfamiliarity with the media phenomenon and a habit of monopolistic media.
For this reason, some officials and people in power and media and those in pulpits and speeches think that everything we witness is essentially the product of the media war of Iran’s sworn enemies, and on this side, there has been no knot or negligence or mistake at all.
This approach does not attribute any credibility to truth and reality and reduces everything to a narrative. Based on this, it believes that in the face of a foreign narrative, a domestic narrative must be dominant, regardless of what the truth may be. Meanwhile, the reality is the plurality and multiplicity of narratives, and discovering the truth is possible through this very plurality and multiplicity.
For this reason, many believe that the story of those who reduce the matter to a war of narratives or media constructs is like the story of someone whose house is on fire and instead of finding the cause, accuses the neighbor who reported the fire.
Where Do Citizen Journalists Stand in This War?
What they do not understand or do not want to see in their analyses is that the main media of the protesters are social networks. These media are pluralistic and provide the opportunity to hear the silenced voices of society. Even if media outlets create narratives, their content is found within these very social networks, where the journalists are the people themselves. Citizen journalists who film and photograph events, incidents, and protests and republish them on social networks. Citizen journalists who are not considered trained and professional in reporting.
However, they have a very important advantage, which is that they are eyewitnesses to the events, whose observations and hearings now circulate on social networks. It is the choice of mainstream media whether to use this content or not. A media outlet like the national broadcaster prefers not to see them, but meanwhile, foreign media outlets republish them, even though many of these images and videos are seen by people on social networks before reaching those media.
Narrative Without Evidence
The idea that wants to reduce everything to a war of narratives has a big gap or ambiguity, which is that if a narrative is intended to persuade the audience, it must be equipped in advance with either evidence and documentation to make the narrative believable to the audience or have mindsets aligned with it so that it can engage the audience even without evidence and documentation.
Why, in the case of Mahsa Amini, no matter how much the national broadcaster tried, it could not convince the audience. Why even the release of those CCTV images was not effective. What was the public’s mindset about the national broadcaster that even if they wanted to, they could not believe it?
Or in the case of Kian Pirfalak’s murder, the audience needs to know what model the bullet and weapon fired were. Where are the CCTV films of the Red Crescent or the surrounding streets? Why don’t you publish the narratives of the witnesses of the incident, or if you do, why are they still questioned? What does the forensic report say? How much permission and opportunity do independent official media inside the country have to publish field and investigative reports on the matter?
Not a War of Narratives, but a War of Trust
Those who believe in and talk about the war of narratives think that there are two opposing fronts, two narrators who probably each want to impose their narrative, as if the audience is a blank slate without preconceptions, with no possibility and right of choice and analysis. While the fact that some are attracted to one side’s narrative and others to the opposing narrator means, firstly, that the audience is not an amorphous and shapeless mass that is necessarily overwhelmed by narrative tactics, and secondly, that ultimately one of them is the narrator of truth or their narrative is closer to the audience’s subjective truth. The issue, however, is not in the war of narratives but in the war of trust.
The fact that news authority has shifted from inside to outside and that internal official media, especially the national broadcaster, have lost their credibility at least among a large section of the people does not return to a failure in the war of narratives but to a failure in gaining public trust. This is a stage before storytelling or at least cannot be separated from it.
The reason why a large section of the people do not trust the national broadcaster’s narrative is not that the official media could not properly establish its narrative or that its tools were insufficient. It is because there is no news or trace of what they themselves see on the streets and share with each other on social networks in the official internal media and the national broadcaster. Because the national media and official media have from the beginning stamped their demands and requests with rejection, disdain, and denial. Because they see themselves as excluded from the national media. Isn’t this enough for distrust?