Media, Culture and Society in Iran

The puzzle of how a vibrant civil society has continued to thrive under a theocratic Islamic state in Iran has long baffled many scholars and analysts of Iranian politics. This wide-ranging collection of essays by a group of young scholars, based mostly in Iran, provides the most informative analysis of this complex relationship between the society and the state in Iran by exploring the role of the media (including the press, television, cinema, the internet, etc.), music, popular literature, and gender relations. It offers fresh perspectives on the contemporary Iranian political culture—as well as politics of culture—in the postrevolutionary period and should be of great interest to students of Middle East politics, communications theory, and cultural studies.

Ali Banuazizi, Professor of Political Science, Boston College, and Past President of the Middle East Studies Association

Iran is often seen as a series of frozen images, with angry clerics and anti-American shibboleths being the byproducts of a stultifying theocratic order. In this path-breaking book, a different Iran comes to life, as a number of authors challenge the prevailing impressions. From the politics of the internet to disquisition of religious discourse in the seminaries, Media, Culture and Society in Iran opens new vistas into this most complex of countries. For anyone interested in understanding the Islamic Republic, its tribulations and contradictions, its promises and ideals, there is simply no better guide.

Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations, author of Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic.

If the world needed any reminder that Iranians, like any other people, are busy resisting domestic tyranny, defying globalized imperialism, and mapping out the contours of their own place in history, Mehdi Semati's judiciously edited volume is here to respond to that need. Through a succession of brilliant first hand accounts on media, culture, and civil society in Iran, the essays capably collected in this volume cut through the mind-numbing clichés that think tank analysts and their native mis-informers have fed the public at large. The rambunctious Iranian press, a thriving internet culture, the politics of its youths, their arts and music, the importance of satellite TV, a globalized cinema, the inner dynamics of a grassroots women's movement, and innumerable other minutiae of a struggling cosmopolitan culture come to life in this unprecedented and deeply informative book.

Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, Author of Iran: A People Interrupted