Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution - Softcover

Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816622175 ISBN 13: 9780816622177

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1994

Synopsis

Reveals how small media (leaflets and audio cassettes) played an important role in the revolution that deposed the Shah of Iran.

To most Westerners, the Iranian revolution was a shocking spectacle, a distant mass upheaval suddenly breaking into the daily news. It was, in fact, a revolution of the television era, as these authors book clearly demonstrate. The first account of the role of culture and communication in the Iranian revolution, this is also the first book to consider revolution as communication in the modern world.

Coauthored by participants in the revolutionary upheaval, this study reflects an unusual breadth and depth of perspective. Drawing on ten years of research, the authors vividly show how the processes and products of modernization were used to undermine the very foundation of modernity in Iran. Their work reveals how deeply embedded cultural modes of communication coupled with crucial media technologies were able to mobilize a population within a repressive political context.

Tracing the use of small media (audio cassettes and leaflets) to disseminate the revolution, the authors challenge much of the theory that has dominated international communication studies-and, in doing so, question the credibility of the established media. They also examine the dilemmas of cultural policy making based on Islamic principles in a media-saturated domestic and international environment.

About this title

About the Author

Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi is professor and director of the Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, England. Ali Mohammadi is a reader in international communication and cultural studies at the Nottingham Trent University, England. They are coeditors of Questioning the Media (1990).

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816622175
• ISBN 13: 9780816622177
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256