A Critical Analysis of Political-Economical Discourse: the Case of Iran’s Post-Nuclear Deal Economic Development

A Critical Analysis of Political-Economical Discourse: the Case of Iran’s Post-Nuclear Deal Economic Development

Although there have been numerous critical discourse analysis studies that have examined sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological, semantic, philosophical and logical issues, each with various hypothetical models and research techniques, there has been little research to critically analyze the editorial texts with respect to the popular issue of Iran’s economic growth after nuclear negotiations. The present study, therefore, took an initiative critical perspective towards the rather under-research area of political and economical discourse analysis. The issue of Iran’s economic changes after the nuclear deal attracted considerable attention from news media. This study intended to examine the news editorials from four world-known newspapers: Tehran Times, New York Times, China Daily, and Moscow Times. Twenty editorials were selected from each newspaper and were subjected to content analysis through the application of Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis model. The obtained frequency data were analyzed through a series of Chi-square tests. The findings revealed significant differences among these newspapers showing a putative disparity between political and real world framings of the economical changes identified in this research. The points of departure and their significant implications are further discussed.

Although there have been numerous critical discourse analysis studies that have examined sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological, semantic, philosophical and logical issues, each with various hypothetical models and research techniques, there has been little research to critically analyze the editorial texts with respect to the popular issue of Iran’s economic growth after nuclear negotiations. The present study, therefore, took an initiative critical perspective towards the rather under-research area of political and economical discourse analysis. The issue of Iran’s economic changes after the nuclear deal attracted considerable attention from news media. This study intended to examine the news editorials from four world-known newspapers: Tehran Times, New York Times, China Daily, and Moscow Times. Twenty editorials were selected from each newspaper and were subjected to content analysis through the application of Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis model. The obtained frequency data were analyzed through a series of Chi-square tests. The findings revealed significant differences among these newspapers showing a putative disparity between political and real world framings of the economical changes identified in this research. The points of departure and their significant implications are further discussed.