The Media Line: How Iran Uses (and Abuses) Media To Wage Psychological Warfare 

How Iran Uses (and Abuses) Media To Wage Psychological Warfare 

With the internet throttled and state narratives amplified by TV, clerics, and Telegram, Iranians are relying on dangerous workarounds—and outside media—to keep the world watching  

By Giorgia Valente / The Media Line  

As Iran’s protests enter a critical phase, the country’s confrontation is no longer limited to the streets. It has evolved into a full-scale information war, in which control over narratives, images, and access to the outside world has become as decisive as physical repression.  

At the center of this battle is a tightly coordinated state propaganda system operating under the cover of one of the most extensive internet shutdowns in Iran’s history. At the same time, protesters, opposition media, and ordinary citizens are attempting—often at extreme personal risk—to bypass that system and convey what is happening on the ground.  

According to Hadi Zonouzi, a PR and marketing specialist and news editor for Los Angeles-based Lotus Communications Corp, whose analysis is informed by recent conversations with trusted contacts inside Iran during brief windows of connectivity, the regime’s messaging apparatus is not ad hoc or reactive, but systematic and synchronized.  

He described a system in which state television, regime-aligned outlets, clerical figures, “experts,” and online influencers operate in near-perfect coordination. “The regime’s propaganda isn’t just coming from official news channels; it’s a full-spectrum operation. It’s a coordinated ecosystem that includes state and semi-official media outlets that work in perfect sync. Then you have the so-called ‘experts’ and officials who appear on TV panels, all reinforcing the exact same talking points,” Zonouzi told The Media Line.  

This messaging, he explained, is amplified by clerics delivering political sermons, semi-official Telegram channels, and English-language material aimed at diaspora communities and overseas audiences. “They even use the clerical establishment to lend religious legitimacy to the crackdown and deploy English-language content and influencers to push their narrative to the diaspora and international audiences,” he said.  

What makes the system particularly effective is its synchronization. “It’s easy to tell this is orchestrated rather than organic. When a new term or a new narrative frame is introduced, it appears across all these channels simultaneously. The timing is too perfect to be a coincidence,” he noted.  

This synchronized messaging has intensified in recent days, with new visual political propaganda—including a mural in Enqelab Square targeting the United States in English and Farsi that reads: “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind,” which Zonouzi interpreted as a sign of pressure rather than confidence.  

“They are bluffing a lot. That’s their strategy. They want to show that they are strong. But this level of propaganda, this intensity, is because they feel the pressure—especially from the United States and Israel,” he said.  

The backbone of this propaganda effort is the internet shutdown, which Zonouzi described as unprecedented in scale. “The regime has effectively built a digital iron curtain around Iran. They’ve moved beyond simple internet throttling. We are now in the longest and most complete internet shutdown in the country’s history,” he explained.  

The blackout serves multiple purposes at once. “This blackout is designed to stop the flow of information, prevent protesters from organizing, and, most importantly, hide the scale of their atrocities from the world, which now are reported as 36,500 in just 48 hours between January 8-9,” he noted.  

By restricting access, the state not only limits coordination among protesters but also controls what can be documented, when, and by whom. Hospitals, morgues, and neighborhoods become harder to reach, and independent verification of arrests and deaths by foreign media becomes nearly impossible.  

Yet the blackout is not total. Zonouzi noted that state-aligned media retain selective connectivity, allowing propaganda to continue even as ordinary citizens are cut off. “Most of the Iranian broadcasting and media connected to the IRGC are active on Telegram and manage to keep publishing, like PressTV and Tasnim News Agency]. They have different kinds of VPNs and tunnels that they are using to spread their propaganda,” he said.  

The Media Line independently verified that several state-aligned outlets are currently inaccessible online in many Western countries, including major sites such as the Tehran Times and Mehr. 

Opposition outlets and independent journalists, by contrast, face far higher barriers. “They [the regime] don’t want to connect people to the international internet. But they themselves, because they need propaganda to manage the situation, they find a way for themselves,” Zonouzi said.  

Despite the blackout, protesters and opposition networks have repeatedly sought to break the regime’s information monopoly. Over time, this has included the clandestine use of Starlink satellite terminals, VPNs, mesh networks, and encrypted messaging platforms—tools that provide limited windows of communication when the domestic network collapses.  

Zonouzi emphasized, however, that these tools are not without cost. “The very tools you would use to access independent information—VPNs, satellite internet like Starlink—are now illegal. Possession alone can lead to prison,” he said.  

The regime, he explained, treats connectivity itself as evidence of dissent. People are not only punished for posting content, but for following, reposting, liking, or even being interviewed by foreign media. “They are targeting not just journalists, but anyone who follows, reposts, or messages content from opposition sources,” he stated.   

Those who speak to international outlets face particular danger. “People who are interviewed by foreign media can be labeled as foreign agents. That doesn’t stop at borders. It can follow them and their families, even abroad,” he added.  

Yet despite these risks, citizens continue to try to communicate widely. “Despite the fear, people are still trying as much as possible to share messages, to send videos, to speak with the outside world. The hunger for uncensored information is undeniable,” he said.  

In the absence of access for international reporters, opposition- and diaspora-based outlets have become central to documenting events. They aggregate videos smuggled out of Iran, compile casualty lists, and cross-reference reports from hospitals, families, and local networks.  

This role has become even more critical as the regime disputes death tolls and promotes sharply lower official figures. 

Zonouzi pointed out that numbers themselves are politicized. “When bodies are taken, when families are intimidated, when you have to pay to receive a body or risk never seeing it again, counting becomes part of the repression,” he said.  

In this context, opposition media is not simply reporting; it is preserving evidence in real time, often under conditions designed to erase it.  

The symbolic disruption of state television earlier in the protest cycle—when hackers briefly inserted a message attributed to Reza Pahlavi calling for resistance—highlighted the stakes of this information war. Though short-lived, the hack demonstrated both the vulnerability of state media and the determination of opposition actors to reach domestic audiences by any means available.  

A central concern raised by Zonouzi is how regime framing can seep into international coverage, especially when access is limited and official statements dominate the information flow. He identified recurring terms—“riots,” “foreign-backed,” “terrorists,” “national sovereignty”—that are introduced domestically and then echoed outward. 

“The main frame is that these are not legitimate protests, but foreign-backed riots orchestrated by the US and Israel. Protesters are not citizens with grievances; they are mercenaries or terrorists,” he said.  

For domestic audiences, this language serves to dehumanize and intimidate. For global audiences, it is softened into diplomatic and legal terms. “For the international community, the emphasis shifts to defending sovereignty against foreign plots. It sounds more political, less brutal,” he explained.  

The risk, Zonouzi warned, is that international media—often unintentionally—reproduces this framing. “When foreign media gives equal weight to regime statements and to the voices of victims, it creates a false balance. It ends up amplifying the regime’s lies,” he said.  

He is particularly critical of coverage that reduces the protests to economic grievances. “When this is framed as a cost-of-living protest, it ignores what people are actually saying. This is not about reform. It’s about regime change,” he noted.  

For Iranians inside the country, international reporting remains a fragile form of protection. “Knowing that the world is watching provides a morale boost. The worst-case scenario is not being watched, but being forgotten,” Zonouzi said.  

At the same time, visibility carries danger, as the regime weaponizes foreign coverage to reinforce its narrative of external conspiracy.  

This tension places a particular responsibility on international media. As Zonouzi argued, the challenge is not simply to report events, but to interrogate sources, language, and power asymmetries.  

“The most important thing is to challenge and contextualize the regime’s lies, not to amplify them,” he said.  

Iran’s current crisis cannot be understood without recognizing that information itself has become a battlefield. Internet shutdowns, synchronized propaganda, selective connectivity, and the criminalization of communication are not side effects of repression—they are its core tools.  

At the same time, the persistence of leaked videos, satellite connections, hacked broadcasts, and testimony from those willing to take enormous risks reflects a parallel reality: a society that continues to resist silence, even as the cost of being heard rises.  

For journalists covering Iran, the task is not only to report what is known, but to remain alert to what is hidden, distorted, or deliberately erased—and to ensure that, as much as possible, Iranian voices are not replaced by the narratives of those trying to suppress them.