Discourse Analysis of the Special Programs of the 60th Anniversary of The 1953 Iranian coup d'état on BBC Persian TV

The present study aims at investigating the discourse(s) shaped around 1953 Iranian coup d'état on the BBC Persian TV in the reports entitled “The 60th anniversary of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état”. Accordingly, discourse and media diplomacy theories have been used. The research method is discourse analysis using Van Dijk’s discourse analysis approach. The text under study includes seven reports collected in a purposive manner and discourse analyzed, after analysis. The research findings show that the texts of all the reports are similar to each other in terms of lexical style, persons and identities presented in the texts, polarization, citations, presuppositions, implications, the parameters of consensuses and agreement and the fundamental prepositions. Based on the findings of the study, the principal framework adopted within these documentary reports about The 1953 Iranian coup d'état is “the Western media diplomacy framework” in which common discourses such as strengthening the "national-liberal" discourse, the "American superpower" discourse, the "moderation" discourse, weakening of the "political Islam" discourse, destruction of the "Marxism" discourse, and the rejection of the "resistance" discourse, have been highlighted in each report with regard to the philosophical and epistemological basis of the aforementioned framework.