محسن عربی

  This article examines the policies and practices of wartime propaganda in the Islamic Republic of Iran during the year ۱۳۶۵ (۱۹۸۶–۱۹۸۷), with particular attention to the Karbala-۴ and Karbala-۵ military operations conducted in the winter of that year. The study’s central concern is to analyze the processes of “message and meaning management” in the context of a crisis of military failure (Karbala-۴) and to elucidate how this experience informed the reconfiguration of propaganda strategies in the subsequent operation (Karbala-۵).

Adopting a qualitative research design, the study draws on data obtained from semi-structured interviews with ۱۵ key decision-makers and practitioners involved in wartime propaganda. Participants were selected purposively through a composite sampling strategy encompassing five institutional clusters: the War Propaganda Headquarters, field propaganda units, national broadcasting (IRIB), narrators/researchers, and journalists. Interview invitations were initially extended to approximately ۳۰ individuals, and the final sample was determined based on the principles of maximum variation in roles and thematic saturation at the level of overarching analytical categories.

Following transcription, the interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis in accordance with the procedural framework proposed by Braun and Clarke. To enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the findings, several validation strategies were employed, including peer debriefing, maintenance of an analytical audit trail, and selective participant checking. It should be noted that thematic analysis of interview data constitutes the primary analytical method of this study.

The findings are organized into six main themes and a set of related subthemes. They indicate that wartime propaganda during this period was characterized by a strong emphasis on institutional coordination and message integration; the reframing of defeat through discourses of duty, sacrifice, and martyrdom; the mobilization of authoritative sources and religious symbols for persuasive purposes and for reinforcing “us versus other” identity constructio   and the strategic combination of formal mass media with field-based propaganda practices. Simultaneously, overly optimistic pre-operational assumptions and the discrepancy between battlefield realities and their mediated representations posed risks of trust erosion and heightened audience sensitivity to informational inconsistencies.

One of the most significant outcomes identified in the study is the process of organizational learning among propaganda decision-makers and the rapid recalibration of messaging in the short interval between the two operations. As a result, Karbala-۵ emerged as a site of greater realism, selective emphasis on defensible achievements, and the partial restoration of public morale. Overall, the study concludes that wartime propaganda in ۱۳۶۵ may be conceptualized as a form of “meaning management in crisis”—a practice that generates resilience and social cohesion when aligned with the lived experiences of its audiences, but entails long-term costs in the form of diminished trust when such alignment is absent.