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 associates are frequently beating the drum of something they call the war of narratives. They believe that what some media outlets are republishing as reality and external truth is nothing but a war of narratives or a media war. Based on this, they completely deny any existential identity for the opposition, dissent, and protests, and they believe it is these media narratives that give shape, identity, and direction to the protests.
They say that we have lost in the media war. Of course, there is a kind of deflection in this claim because they want to say that there is nothing wrong with our other actions, and we have only lost in this war. This loss is the result of unfamiliarity with the media phenomenon and a habit of exclusive media.
For this reason, some officials and holders of power, media, and pulpit believe that everything we witness is fundamentally the product of the media war waged by Iran’s sworn enemies, and on this side, there has been and is no error or negligence.
This approach does not grant any credibility to truth and reality and reduces everything to narrative. Based on this, it believes that in the face of foreign narratives, one must impose the domestic narrative, regardless of what the truth may be. Meanwhile, what exists is the multiplicity and diversity of narratives, and discovering the truth is possible through this very multiplicity and diversity.
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 for protesters are social networks. These media are pluralistic and provide a platform for the silent voices of society to be heard. Even if the media create narratives, their content is found from within these social media, where the reporters 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 information dissemination.
However, they have a very important advantage, and that is being eyewitnesses to the events, whose observations and hearings now circulate on social media. It is the choice of mainstream media whether to use this content or not. A media outlet like the state television prefers not to see them, but meanwhile, media outside Iran republish them, even though many of these images and videos have been seen by people on social media 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, and that is if a narrative is aimed at convincing the audience, it must be equipped with evidence or documentation that makes the narrative credible to the audience, or it must have like-minded mentalities so that even without evidence or documentation, it can engage the audience.
Why, in the case of Mahsa Amini, no matter how much the state television tried, it could not convince the audience? Why was even the release of surveillance camera footage ineffective? What was the public’s perception of the state television that even if they wanted to, they couldn’t believe it?
Or in the case of the murder of Kian Pirfalak, the audience needs to know what model the bullet and weapon used were. Where are the surveillance camera videos from the Red Crescent or surrounding streets? Why don’t you publish the witnesses’ accounts of the incident, or if you do, why are they still questioned? What does the forensic report say? How much permission and ability do independent official media inside the country have to publish field and investigative reports on the incident?
Not a War of Narratives, But a War of Trust
Those who believe in the war of narratives and talk about it think that two opposing fronts face each other, two narrators who probably each want to impose their narrative, as if the audience is a blank slate without mental backgrounds, with no choice or ability to analyze. Meanwhile, the fact that some are attracted to one side of the story and others to the opposing narrator means, firstly, that the audience is not an amorphous mass that is necessarily defeated by narrative techniques, and secondly, that one of them is either the narrator of truth or their narrative is closer to the audience’s subjective truth. However, the issue is not in the war of narratives but in the war of trust.
The fact that the news authority has shifted from inside to outside and that official domestic media, especially the state television, have lost their credibility, at least among a large segment of the people, does not return to failure in the war of narratives but returns to failure in gaining public trust. This is a stage before storytelling, or at least it can be said that it is not separate from it.
The reason why a large segment of the people does not trust the state television’s narrative is not because the official media has failed to establish its narrative well or its tools were insufficient. It is because there is no news or effect of what they themselves see on the streets and share on social media in the official domestic media and the state television. It is because the national media and official media have stamped their demands and requests with rejection, disdain, and denial from the start. It is because they see themselves as the excluded from the national media. Isn’t this enough for distrust?