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This is a contribution from Journal of Language and Politics 13:4


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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab


Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses
Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Media
Communication
Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

Newcastle University / Lancaster University


This study adopts a Critical Discourse Analytical approach to investigate how a
form of Iranian national(ist) identity is (re)constructed and (re)presented on a
popular Facebook Page called Persian Gulf. It focuses on linguistic practices of
the Iranian side of the debate over the name of this body of water. After briefly
discussing some of the challenges of applying CDA to a participatory web
platform e.g. Facebook, This paper explores the characteristics of the Persian
identity discourse in the way that it is utilised to legitimize the name Persian Gulf
vs. the claim to the name Arabian Gulf. The paper concludes that the emergent
Persian national/ist identity discourse is strongly preoccupied with opposing a
perceived cultural invasion of the Arabic Other in its emphatic defence of the
name Persian Gulf but in the meantime it aspires to distinguish itself from the
officially propagated Islamic identity. It is also shown that aspects pertaining
to powerfulness, defiance and conflict are the main thrusts of the discursive
representation of this Self-identity.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis; Social Media discourses analysis;
Facebook; National identity; Nationalism; Iran; Persian Gulf; Arab identity;
theMiddle East

1. Introduction
The discursive politics of identity has been one of the main topics of research in
Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA). This reflects in the bulk of research
on representation of minority groups e.g. immigrants (see K
hosraviNik 2009,
2014a for an index and variety of such studies) and constructions of national(list)
identity (Richardson 2013, Wodak et.al. 2013) as a discursive construction of
difference, uniqueness and distinctiveness (Wodak 2001). Despite the wide-

Journal of Language and Politics 13:4 (2014), . doi 10.1075/jlp.13.4.08kho


issn 15692159 / e-issn 15699862 John Benjamins Publishing Company

Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

spread expansion of application of CDA, there is still a strong tendency to focus


on powerful, top-down texts and discourses of symbolic elites e.g. mass media.
Mass media in general and print media in particular have been traditional sites
for CDA investigation under the (rightly held) assumption that impact of mass
mediated discourses on society is a legitimate scholarly research focus. In fact,
the preoccupation with (discursive) power is an integral part of CDA in its goal to
account for processes of production, distribution and consumption of texts. It is
argued that power is exerted both from within discourse as well as the pre-existing
social structures. In other words CDA engages both with power behind discourse
e.g. the power of mass mediated texts as well as power in discourse e.g. socially
constructed and disseminated texts (see KhosraviNik 2014b for discussion on the
notion of power in digital media).
A large body of critical conceptualization in Media and Cultural Studies share
this assumption of power for mass media and as such have theorised nuanced
explanations for media-society relations including Foucaults (1977) discourse
theory, Halls (1973/1980) encoding/decoding model, Adornos (1991) culture
industry, MacCabes (1985) screen theory and Entmans (2002) framing theory.
CDA itself has developed on the backdrop of (and contributes to) this type of theorisations; all of which share a conceptual principle about the power of discourse
in shaping society and socio-political orientations (Fairclough et al. 2011; Wodak
& Meyer 2009; KhosraviNik 2010).
With the advent and popularity of interactive digital media e.g. social networking sites, several of the shared core assumptions in critical media/text
research such as notions of audience, representation, dynamic of text producers/
consumers and most importantly the linearity of media power have been challenged. The linear, one-sided, one-to-many flow of texts in traditional media is
now replaced by what seems to be an interactive, participatory, many-to-many
flow of texts, which in turn undermines (at least at the local level) the assumed
power behind the discourses of mass media (KhosraviNik 2014b). Even though
early utopian thrills about the potentials of Web 2.0 in decentralising discursive
power and affording a grass root participatory dynamic have not materialised or
are yet to be tested on real-world experiences, the new communication environment is a major imposing reality and challenge for traditions of theorisation in
mass media. In fact, the very notion of media and their social functions/impacts
now require new understanding especially for those critical research strands that
centrally engaged with the notions of (discursive) power such as CDA.
While the paper engages with some features of the participatory web and
its implications for a CDA approach, the main purpose of this paper is to adopt
a critical discourse analytical approach in the way it can be applied to data on a
social networking site and explore how the bottom-up discursive practices are

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

at play in propagating a national identity. The paper aims to investigate how an


Iranian national identity is (re)constructed and (re)presented on a Facebook page
called Persian Gulf by Iranians over the contentious issue of the very name of
this body of water. It is argued that that given the increasing concentration of
discursive practice on the internet and the impact of social media on various
political, cultural and business aspects of society, a socially committed critical
approach to communication, i.e. CDA, cannot afford to shy away from such discursive concentration, especially more so for certain socio-political contexts.
For more detailed discussion on theoretical and methodological challenges of
doing CDA on digital discourses and participatory web see KhosraviNik & Unger
(forthcoming) and KhosraviNik (2014b).
2. Participatory media and critical data repositories
From a linguistic point of view the Internet communication resembles both what
is categorised as inter-personal and mass communication. Several new Internet
technologies have broken the uni-directionality of the flow of content of producer
> mass media > consumer and, at least formally speaking, empowered ordinary
receivers to participate as producers of texts. As contestable as it may be (see KhosraviNik & Unger forthcoming) there are arguments that the Internet as a social- as
opposed to a mass-media tool has allowed for the construction of a wide variety of
non-mainstream identities (Kahn & Kellner 2004) and opened up spaces for new
dynamic of social and political power for non-elite text producers resisting the
discourses of established institutions (see Kelsey & Bennett 2014 for an example
on Twitter). The receivers or audiences of these messages can also number from
one to potentially millions and may or may not move fluidly from their roles as
audience members to the producers of messages (Kelsey & Bennett 2014).
In the meantime, a wealth of (sometimes unique) linguistic data repository
has been afforded through various social communication platforms. While official (powerful) discourses, e.g. official newspapers, TV news, magazines, speeches,
manifestos etc., have been an easy (but necessary) targets for linguistic data
(Unger 2012; Mautner 2005), research on social attitudes (bottom-up language
in use) has always required a well-designed and invested research apparatus, e.g.
systematic fieldwork, focus groups, interviews, etc. (Koteyko 2011). This repository of data should of course be evaluated against an array of limitations including
issues regarding online vs. offline generalisability, specificities of users attitudes
on online platforms e.g. trolling tendencies, issues regarding the demographics of
access, etc. Nonetheless, the fact remains that such data could provide opportunities for research on bottom-up discourses on identity representations in social

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

contexts; even more so for contexts which lack a healthy public sphere i.e. not all
social attitudes get a chance to be reflected in official mass platforms.
Following the traditions of anthropological linguistics and discourse analysis,
Jannis Androutsopoulos and Susan Herring have, respectively, proposed approaches
for socially and contextually sensitive discourse analysis of digital texts. Both
Androutsopoulos Discourse-Centred Online Ethnography (2008) and Herrings
Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis (2004) call for a move from medium-oriented approaches to Computed Mediated Communication (CMC) to user/context
centred approaches which accords with the principles of being problem-oriented
and socially relevant research in CDA theorisation. Thurlow and Mroczek (2011)
along with Androutsopoulos and Beibwenger (2008) differentiate between the
mainstream CMC analytical approaches and what they call commuter-mediated
discourse analysis by foregrounding the problem-orientedness and situationallyfocused orientations of this approach to digital discourse. While such shift is welcomed from a CDA perspective, a strictly CDA approach would call for a more
explicit critical approach to case studies by linking the online discursive practices
to socio-political context of offline world. In other words, there should be a vertical contextualisation level (linking online and offline discourses) in addition to a
horizontal contextualisation (tracing discourses across relevant online platforms).
3. Social networking sites: Facebook
There is an optimistic argument that social networking sites can turn into a new
easily-accessed and managed space for social inclusivity, group recognition and
pluralized participation of ordinary citizens (Dahlgren 2009 cited in Cottle 2011,
p. 650) and can become new spaces of power to impact society, facilitate representations and mobilise activism.
From a political communication point of view, despite its core corporate
structure (KhosraviNik & Unger forthcoming) a mainstream social networking site such as Facebook appears to combine the best features of local bulletinboards, newspapers and town-hall meetings and places them in one location that
is accessible at any time anywhere. It has emerged however, that the mere provision of these affordances does not guarantee the practice of meaningful political
deliberation (Boyd 2008); at least in a late modern social context. The new affordances do not necessarily trigger radical new social and political engagements
per se. In other words, technologies are shaped by society and reflect societys
values back at us, albeit a bit refracted (ibid., p. 112). The key issue here is not
only to avoid making universal assumptions about the nature of societies and
the functionalities of participatory media (or traditional media for that matter)

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

but also to try and situate media practices in relation to the contextual structures
of state power, the role(s) of the m
ilitary and also the organization of political opposition in and across the different societies concerned (Cottle & Nolan
2007, p. 657). A society-oriented approach to the media discourse such as CDA
would foreground the characteristics and circumstances of the society to be able
to explicate the ways new affordances, e.g. online public spheres, are adopted
and adapted in the fabric of a society, a community or a demographic fraction.
This is not to argue that some societies (e.g. the Iranian society) are categorically immune from the macro-structural strategies of global media industry e.g.
corporatisation of virtual spaces and specifically social networking sites (Fuchs
2014) but to emphasise on the need for a more wholesome approach towards
integration of social contexts in the analysis to be able to make the connection
between global structures and local practices. Therefore, it is safe to assume that
in a highly politicalised society like that of Iran, perhaps unlike some Western
largely apolitical contexts, politics in a broad sense (of identity, gender, minority, opposition etc.) automatically pours itself into social networking sites as it
would in any other accessible media. It is a fact that social media can and have
facilitated social and political communication in various Middle Eastern contexts
and have played an important role in what came to be known as Arab Springs,
however, this is no evidence to assume that social media platforms have actually
re-connected these societies with politics. Similarly as Cottle (2011) argues, labelling Arab uprisings as Twitter Revolutions or Facebook Revolutions would be to
misread and downplay the preceding socio-political characteristics. Such a social
reductionist approach would do less than justice to both the political and media
complexities involved (Cottle 2011, p. 650).
4. National identity
National identities are arbitrary discursive constructs in nature. National identity
is substantiated based on a historical narration of material events, beliefs and values in such a way that a (seemingly) coherent consistency and continuity over time
is rendered (Triandafyllidou & Wodak 2003, p. 210). In a broad sense, identity
refers to the social positioning of the self and others (Bucholtz & Hall 2005). In
that spirit identity follows two basic meanings: absolute sameness (among members of in-groups and out-group) and distinctiveness (between the two groups).
Furthermore, identity is neither natural nor static (Maguire 1994, p. 410 in
Georgalou 2009, p. 110), thus it is socially constructed as a condition of being or
becoming that is constantly renewed, confirmed or transformed, at the individual
or collective level (ibid., quoting Triandafyllidou & Wodak 2003, p.205). National

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

identity as the most common and (perhaps) necessary construct has been at the
core of political processes leading to (and emerging from) the creation of nationstates whereby the nation is conceptualised as an imagined political as well as cultural community (Anderson 1983, p. 15) contained within its borders. The closely
related notion of nationalism as an explicit (often extreme) expression of identity
is seen as a systematic transformation of this sense of national belonging between
groups of people into an antagonistic orientation to other peoples and nations,
regarding them as enemies, either oppressors or inferiors (Georgalou 2009, p. 111;
See also Wodak et.al. 2013).
In the modern life world, the primary collective identity to which individuals are connected is the nation (Wodak et al. 1999). A nation, as a sociological
entity within a specific territory, presupposes that both a common sentiment and
a common identity are shared by its members (Duke & Crolley 1996). A nation as
an imagined community (Anderson 1983) is shaped and conveyed both through
top-down discourses (e.g. mass media, education, politics) and bottom-up social
language-in-use through the (re)telling of national narratives by members. As
members believe in and identify with the characteristics which form the image of
national identity, the imagined community is counted as real (Grad & Rojo 2008).
Analysing collective identities has naturally been a main realm for CDA
including national identity (Wodak et al. 1999), nationalism (Krzyanowski &
Wodak 2009, Richardson 2013), ethnic/racial/religious identities (KhosraviNik,
2009) or an international collective identity e.g. European identity (Krzyanowski
2010). What is common here is that discursively propagated and disseminated
constructs of collective identities are internalised through socialisation (hence
communication; mass or interpersonal) whereby such constructs and dispositions
of difference, distinctiveness and uniqueness (Georgalou 2009:112) are re/created
and re/presented. Discourses (top-down official/mass media or bottom-up nonofficial/ordinary citizens) can be seen as sites in which the qualities of national
identity are revealed, given that language (re)produces and reflects social relations
and practices.
5. Persian Gulf: The name and debate
The Persian Gulf has been regarded as a border zone in the Middle East. This
body of water separates Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia from Iran (Persia until 1935). Historically speaking,
there is ample evidence to the name Persian for the gulf. Potter (2009) for example,
notes that the name Persian Gulf came into use at the time of Darius I (522486
B.C.) when the Greek geographer Hecataeus used the term Persikos Kolpos,

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

i.e. Persian Gulf, around 500 B.C. for the first time in a written source. Several
early Islamic texts continued to use the Arabic equivalent of Persian Gulf; Bahr alFars (Sea of Fars/Persia). Later, the Portuguese used the term Sino Persico (Persian
Gulf), which was later picked up as a reference source by European and British
mapmakers for the past two centuries. Until recent years all British publications
on the region would use Persian Gulf (Bosworth 1997). One of the signs of the
Arab-Persian rivalry discourse in recent history was when the Arab nationalist
president Nasser of Egypt launched a campaign for the Arabian Gulf in the 1950s
as part of his pan-Arabian nationalist agenda. The campaign was faced by a strong
opposition from the Iranian monarch of the time, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - who
had founded a large part of his monarchical legitimacy on a mythology of glorious Persian dynasties and a (secular) Persian identity for the nation (Tripp 2000).
Compromised proposals such as the Islamic Gulf have not been embraced by
either side, with the Iranians insisting on using the full historic name (ibid.).
The Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 not only reversed the pro-Western
leanings of the Pahlavi monarch but also changed the officially defined national
identity of Iran/ians from a Persian identity (viewed as secular, and national) to a
(Shiite) Muslim identity (viewed as religious, revolutionary and supra-national).
After the Revolution, the semiotics of Persian identity was replaced with Islamic
(Shiite) identity in all official discourses and institutions, e.g. education, mass
media, politics, etc. The Persian identity discourse gradually took on the characteristics of a competing/oppositional discourse -especially by the first generation
of exiled Iranians in the USA.
In 2004, the National Geographic Society published an edition of their world
atlas which included Arabian Gulf in brackets, under the name Persian Gulf,
as an alternative secondary name. This led to a firestorm of opposition among
Iranians both inside and outside. Consequently, the National Geographic Society
updated its online maps and included a brief explanation that the waterway was
historically and most commonly known as the Persian Gulf .
The Gulf region has a hybrid culture of Arab and Persian. With the political
changes in the region and the Shiite/Sunni struggle to maintain hegemony in the
region, the matter has become further complicated beyond the regional geopolitical constellations for example in terms of relations with the West. In most of the
scuffles over the name, the Iranian/Persian sides reaction is much more extensive, emphatic and possessive which speaks to a complicated context of internal
political struggles and an internal identity crisis as a consequence of long standing
confrontation between Iran and the West (esp. the USA). As a general rule, the
overwhelming mobilisation and engagement of Iranian (online) community in
debates and issues regarding territorial claims (especially from Arabic rivals) has
been a common phenomenon. On the Iranian side, the discourse about Persian

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

identity and hence engagement and sensitivity against the use of Arabian Gulf
is predominantly organized, facilitated and pursued by social (non-official, nonstate) social layers and sources. The official Iranian revolutionary discourse has
traditionally been against identifying with the Persian mythology.1 On the Arabian side, the main thrust or what many Iranians view as provocative attempts in
forging the name seems to come from official/state sources as Arab states insist
on using the Arabian Gulf (Potter 2009). While almost all the Arab states of the
region have extensive cordial official relations with the USA/West, the Iranian
official over-arching macro-discourse is anti-colonial/USA/West (KhosraviNik
2015). However, most countries and international organisations such as the United
Nations still use the term Persian Gulf as the official name.
Having said that, the aim of the current study is not to participate in the
debate over the name whatsoever. The study seeks instead to look into the Iranian
side of the debate as a concentrated discursive site through which the characteristics of the Persian national/ist identity is represented and re/constructed.
While trying to avoid various socio-political complications, we attempt to see
how the notion of Persian identity (Us/in-group/Self) is constructed in order to
legitimize the name Persian Gulf as a universal name, and how the Arab identity
(Them/out-group/Other) is constructed in order to de-legitimise the claim to
Arabian Gulf .
6. Facebook and data
As the most popular social networking site (though not the first in kind) Facebook allows members to share their personal information, photos and interesting
news and links in their profiles, along with providing a forum for discussions and
exchanges on a variety of topics among a virtual network of friends (and friends of
friends). In addition to opportunities for exchange and discussion on users message boards, there are numerous interest groups and pages focusing on a variety
of issues, interests and topics-from the most mundane of interests to most serious
political debates and activisms. Members can create their own themed groups on
any topic and invite other members to join. In groups, members can post to message boards, add pictures, and post news and links. Groups/pages can be public
with open membership (usually triggered by clicking on a like icon) or public
with a closed membership. Group administrators can apply different degrees of

. In April 2008, a gathering in front of the UAE embassy in Tehran against the use of the
name Arabian Gulf was confronted by Iranian police.

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

control over the content, e.g. deleting some comments, topic updates, communicating on or off the list with all members.
With the growing popularity of the Internet and issues around access to
mass media in Iran, part of this social impetus to propagate a Persian identity has
found its way onto social networking sites especially Facebook. There have also
been previous initiatives in the form of organising campaigns by fellow Internet users, e.g. the provision of a Google bomb2 against the name Arabian Gulf .
There are a number of Facebook Pages on this topic. The most frequently visited Facebook Page which directly concentrates on this topic is a called Persian
Gulf.3 With good administration, promotion and networking, the page, which
was launched in January 2010, has now more than 291000 members (at the time
of writing). It is classified as an Education page and according to its administrator: the page is dedicated to the Persian Gulf, its name, geography, history, culture and arts. Membership is granted by clicking the Like icon on the page. By
doing this members get a news feed on their Facebook home page, can comment
on the statuses posted on the page, view and comment on notes and pictures that
are shared on the pages wall. Up until November 2011 members were able to
post their own posts (topics) but this feature has been suspended due to the fact
that, according to the administrator, the moderation of all posts and maintaining
the focus proved impossible. There are notes posted on this page as well. Notes
which are posted separately are usually long posts that are deemed too long to be
published as a status on the main pages wall. The main bulk of communication,
and hence the focus of this study, is what occurs in the comments sections of
proposed topics/status/ shared news. For the purposes of this paper, we opt not
to look at notes: firstly because they are limited in numbers with some not even
related to the discussion of the Persian Gulf; and secondly, although members can
also comment there, notes are not as visible and approachable as wall posts and
thus the level of discussion and participation by members is significantly low for
notes as compared to wall posts.

. A Google bomb is a way to increase the ranking of a given site in the results returned by
the Google search engine. Because of the way that Googles Page Rank algorithm works, a site
will be ranked higher if other sites that link to that page all use the same consistent anchor
text. The then thriving blogosphere of Iranians in 2004 decided to systematically hyperlink
the term Arabian Gulf to a spoof page (Arabian-gulf.info) which gives an error message that
The Gulf You Are Looking For Does Not Exist. Try Persian Gulf . Thus the more pages use the
phrase Arabian Gulf, the higher the probability for Google search engine to render it as a high
ranking relevant page for Arabian Gulf. Also see PersianAreNotArabs.com.
. Accessible at https://www.facebook.com/Persian.Gulf.Gulf. The data for this analysis has
been collected from this page.

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

As an operationally necessary stage, we also devised a systematic and sensitive


way of down-sampling the data so that, on the one hand, the data is manageable
for qualitative detailed textual analysis, and on the other hand, the topic, focus and
context of the data can be kept under control for CDA contextualisation purposes
(see KhosraviNik 2010). We focused on the size of the reactions and debates that a
given post had initiated. Through a pilot topic analysis of the discussions between
1 June and 1 September 2011, we selected wall posts/topics which triggered a
lengthy discussion in the comments section. As general criteria we decided to
analyse posts that; a. related to the topic of Persian Gulf directly -hence construction of Persian nationalist discourse; b. were within the defined time frame; and c.
received at least 60 comments/reactions. This procedure provided us with a data
set which would be both concentrated on the aims of the research and manageable
for detailed textual analysis. A sample of topics on the Persian Gulf Facebook page
which triggered substantial comments and their relative importance (indicted by
the number of *) is shown in Table 1:
Table 1. Topics
Topic

URL/Source

Importance

The White house and the name Persian


Gulf

https://www.facebook.com/photo.ph
p?fbid=246136642065871&set=a.122
234974456039.19319.1210643245731
04&type=1&ref=nf

*****

Reuters report in which bogus name of


A.r.a.b.i.a.n Gulf is used

http://af.reuters.com/
article/energyOilNews/
idAFLDE75L1LC20110622

***

Lets turn Facebook to Persian Gulf.


Dear fellow countrymen, please change
your profile photo to the Persian Gulf
poster on 30th of April in support of
our Persian Gulf to show to the world
that our Persian gulf is not for sale

http://www.facebook.
com/media/set/fbx/?set
=a.10150090968351111.309092.
285224906110

***

Dear Friends, please report this bogus


and illegal page. Long live Persian Gulf

https://www.facebook.com/
TheArabianGulf
manager.arabiangulf@gmail.com
editorarabiangulf@gmail.com

****

Dear Friends, we have managed to


force the business and investment office
of Britain to remove the bogus name of
A.r.a.b.i.a.n Gulf However, this cunning
old fox has closed their previous
pages and opened new ones. We must
continue emailing and sending our
complaints until the word the Gulf is
changed to the Persian Gulf .

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php
?fbid=10150153016796111&set=a.44
9813096110.241195.285224906110
http://www.facebook.com/note.
php?note_id=10150232416846111

***

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

7. Methods
The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to critical discourse analysis (Reisigl &
Wodak 2009) has been specifically focused on representation of Self-Other identities and discursive constructions of national identity (see e.g. Wodak etal. 1999 for
a classic example). DHA puts emphasis on the historical dimension by accounting for the networks of discourses in place both synchronically and diachronically
(KhosraviNik forthcoming). The historical dimensions of a discursive act are investigated in two ways: a. Integration of all the available information about the historical background and the original course in which discursive events are embedded
and b. Explanation of the particular types and genres of discourse (Reisigl & Wodak
2009; Wodak & Meyer 2009). Overall, the thematic questions of What (is/not in
the text), How (the textual characteristics are/not deployed) can be answered by
investigating the qualities of a text, whereas the Why (it is the way it is) question
is tackled via contextualisation i.e. accounting for the links between the analysed
linguistic performance and the relevant socio-political explications (KhosraviNik
2010). The main analytical categories of the DHA in detailed textual analysis are:
Referential/nomination strategies (i.e. actor descriptions) and Predicational Strategies (i.e. action attributions) which consider the linguistic construction of social
actors, objects, events, processes and their qualification in terms of what actions,
qualities, attributions etc. are associated with the actors of Self and Other. Together
with argumentation strategies, the three strategies of referential/actor descriptions,
referential/action attribution and argumentation constitute the core of DHA methods along with strategies of perspectivisation and Intensification/mitigation which
may influence all the three levels (KhosraviNik 2010). The DHAs proposed discursive strategies have been utilised in a plethora of research. Depending on the
research questions, the specificities of the social contexts and qualities of the genre
of data, some of these strategies may prove to be more significant than others.
The genre of the data at hand could determine what strategies are foregrounded
or afforded better than others. It is difficult if not impossible to characterise
a general genre type for linguistic practices on the web. However, communications on social networking sites such as Facebook are known to be overtly informal, instantaneous and relatively brief. On the other hand, the general informality
along with qualities arising from the norms of practice e.g. dealing with several
pages almost simultaneously, multi-modal nature of communication etc., allow/
require the comments to be structurally messy and impulsive. Therefore, not
unlike linguistic characteristics of tabloid newspapers, coherent, explicit argumentative contents/strategies would have little room to feature in these debates.
Inthis particular case study, there is an additional factor to push the (linguistically
realised) argumentation out of the equation: the Page under investigation has an

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

on-the-record bias in favour of the Iranian side and thus it is predominantly a


space to gather like-minded users who would share large body of understandings,
attitudes, and values regarding the issue. As such, argumentation (if any) would
only be hinted at e.g. via references or predications to trigger and connect to what
is assumed to be the old shared knowledge among the Page members. As opposed
to other data sets, e.g. (quality) newspaper articles and blog posts where writers
have sufficient space/time and/or are required by the conventions of the genre to
write in a more argumentatively coherent and visible manner, political communication on Facebook Pages has general fleetness which calls for brief and quick
expressions of (often highly evaluative) opinions.
8. Analysis and discussion
The first main aspect of analysis is to investigate What linguistic content, along the
line of referential and predicational strategies, is available, in what combinations
and with what thematic categorisations. This is to examine in detail how Iranians
discursively construct a positive representation of Self: Persians/Iranians and the
Persian Gulf as the legitimate name and a negative presentation of Other: Arabs,
and any institution/country which is perceived to propagate other names for this
body of water.4
Referential strategies found for Self presentation include a combination
of themes which stretch from racial categories e.g. Aryans, to glorification of
the Iranian (pre-Islamic) history of Persian empires and various expressions of
(extreme) patriotism and metaphorical (conflictual) constructs, e.g. the referential
metaphorical representation of Us as lions. In line with a historical understanding of the name of Iran as the land of so-called Aryans, reference to this racial
terminology is the most recurring category of Self, as opposed to representation of
the Other as non-Aryans in the overture. Along with other occasional racial characterisations, e.g. references to purity, other categories include extreme historical
glorification and emphasis on pre-Islamic patriotism as the real Iranian identity.
Current Iranian officials and government members also feature quite substantially
as members of the Other. This group is mostly represented similarly to the main
group of Other (i.e. Arabs), either by association, e.g. Arab worshipers, or by negative attribution, e.g. inept or inefficient officials
Expectedly, the most common and central referential strategy is the repetition
of and emphasis on the continuity of the name of Persian Gulf , mostly along with

. All coding is done manually by closely analysing the language used. Broader thematic
categorisations emerge via detailed analyses.

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

qualifiers (Table 2). The main qualifying strategy is to emphasise the eternal nature
of the name, e.g. Persian Gulf for ever, which is the most recurring and salient
reference made to this gulf. In addition to that, salience is found in references to
uniqueness of the name and the unchangeable nature of it by adding qualifiers
such as just and only to the name, e.g. Only Persian Gulf , which seeks pragmatically to reject other proposals. Other referential features include the category of
references to history, e.g. The legacy of our fathers, and the aesthetic features of
the gulf, e.g. The turquoise gulf of Persia (Table 3).
Table 2. Referential strategies: Representing Self
Pronouns

We, Us, I

References to the
Race:
country and the nation The Aryan generation
(Self).
The Aryan soil
Aryans of the land of Iran, the children of Ahoura Mazda
The land of Aryan
The Persian race
The Aryans
The Persians (4)6
All the Persians of the Iranian land
Clever Persians
Glorified history:
Persian empire
Great Cyrus
Largest empire in history
The true children of the ancient time
The pure land of Cyrus
The followers of Babak Khoramdin
The children of Cyrus
The country with great history
Patriotism:
The zealous country lovers
Patriotic Iranians
The pure-natured patriotic people
The true soldiers of land of Iran
The sacred land of Iran
Our sacred Iran
The pure soil of the country
My beloved land
My country
Our soil
The mother-land.
(Continued)

. The number in brackets corresponds to relative emphasis of the element in the analysed
data.

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

Table 2. Referential Strategies: Representing Self (Continued)


Metaphor:
The land of brave lions
The realm of brave lion
Land of lions
The lion (-hearted) Iranian men and women
Other:
Iran and its lion & Sun flag
Here Iran
Hard-working Iranians
Iranians from various ethnic, racial and cultural groups
The educated people
Negative
representations of the
Iranian government
(Other-inside)

The Arab lovers


The Arab worshipers
A bunch of Arab worshipers
The thieves
The inept and unpatriotic government
The inefficient government
The anti-humanists
The crazy crowd
The domestic traitors

References to Our
Persian Gulf.

Permanence:
Persian Gulf for ever (5)
Forever and ever and everPersian Gulf (2)
The eternal Persian Gulf (4)
The eternal Persian Gulf
Everlasting Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf for all the times
Viva Persian Gulf
Uniqueness:
Only Persian Gulf
Just Persian Gulf
The truly named Persian Gulf
History:
The older than history
The honourable heritage
The legacy of our fathers
The gulf of Arya
Aesthetic features:
The turquoise Gulf of Persia
The beautiful Persian Gulf
The turquoise and powerful waters of the Persian Gulf for ever
The blue jewel of Iran
The pure and sacred (gulf)

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

The predicational strategies employed in Self and Other representation can


be categorised into predications of the country and the Persian Gulf. Similar to
references, the first theme is to emphasise the permanency and ever-lasting nature
of Us and the country, followed by positive predications, e.g. our country accommodates all ethnic groups, has a wealth of culture, etc. Similarly, the theme of
ancient glorification also features at a predicational level, e.g. we have an ancient
civilization. The Persian Gulf is also represented through the same themes as in
referential strategies (Table 3). This includes representation of Us/our country as a
steadfast, long-lasting entity and having or being associated with strong historical
roots (Table 3).
Table 3. Predicational strategy representing Self
Our country and nation everlasting:
(Self)
will live forever
will last till an Iranian exists
long lives
will long live
will remain Persian
features:
accommodates all ethnic groups
is sacred
has had a wealth of culture
has a single unified voice
is loved dearly and zealously
Iran as Persia (history):
are descendants of Cyrus the Great
love our history, culture and symbols
are the true children of our proud ancestors
have a much bigger history than America

Our Persian Gulf (Self)

are Persian
have Zoroaster as our prophet
have an ancient civilization
love our Persia
will not overlook the insult our identity
are ready to defend it with blood
love peace and friendship

heritage and permanency:


is forever, here and anywhere
is Persian now and forever
will live long
is our past present and future
is eternal
(Continued)

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Table 3. Predicational strategy representing Self (Continued)

has always been Persian and will remain Persian


is protected by us for ever
remains Fars forever
is for future generations
is the legacy of the Great Cyrus
stays Fars
was and will be Persian gulf
has been Persian for thousands of years
is older than history
is a universal name
has an honourable history
is not a memory
has only one name

belonging:
belongs to the Persians
belongs to Iranians
belongs to Iran
belongs to us
means home
is my birth certificate
is ours
is placed in our soul and blood
is our identity
is the beating heart of Iran
is engraved in our hearts
is part of our national identity and culture
Other:
is loved
is very precious
is a burial for the Arabs

The predications of Persian Gulf constitute the main bulk in terms of recurrence. Apart from predications emphasising the heritage and historicity of the name
and the entity, there is a substantial theme around the notion of belonging. The
notion of belonging here conceptually denotes a collective mental representation
of the situation in which the conflict is beyond a mere matter of naming and is represented in a presupposed shared understanding of a frame in which Iran is losing
territory. This should be positioned in a network of discourses situated diachronically within the contemporary history of Iran over the last few centuries in which
there have been a series of territorial losses and a repertoire of old knowledge/
perceptions claiming that glorious Persia has been constantly shrinking in terms
of both power and territory.
The Iranian officials/government feature as the Other within predications as well. A major category of presentation of this group is negativisation by

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

a ssociation. As the Page is heavily against the Arabic Other, the Iranian Islamic
government is associated with the Other by race and religion, e.g. They are not
(real) Iranians. On the one hand, there is a general conflation of the concepts of
religion and race in both Self and Other representations on the other hand, there is
a Manichean division of universal good and evil on the basis of Persian and Arabs
with no other contravening factor. Another theme is the predications regarding
the perceived lack of government defensive initiative in the conflict, e.g. They are
merely onlooker on this issue; They take no responsibility (Table 4).
Table 4. Predicational strategy for representation of the Other-inside
Iranian government
(and its supporters)

Arabs and Religion:


have an Arab ancestry
are proud of their Arabic race
are not (real) Iranians
have turned the whole of Iran into Arab
have sacrificed the (Iranian) nation for their (own) religion
are obsessed with religion
have no patriotic zeal
ineptness/shamelessness:
take no responsibility
have officially destroyed Iran
are merely onlooker on this issue
smirk at Iranian people
(should) wake up as soon as possible and come to our aid
should be ashamed of themselves

The negative representation of the Arab-other is constructed substantially


through a series of random demeaning references with little argumentative content. Apart from the main reference to Arabs, this referential strategy associates
the Other with being uncivilised, ignorant and primitive. Several references are
also made to what are supposed to be the consequences of life practices in dry
lands,6 e.g. Lizard eaters, or derogatory references to the so-called tribal nature
of the Other. Interestingly, there is also a very small group of references to Other
which collates the Arabs (governments) with America and other organizations/
countries that support them in what is perceived as attempts to distort the name
and by extension to threaten the territorial integrity of the country, e.g. The Arabic
Obama. The name Arabian Gulf is generally avoided. To refer to the name, users
. Interestingly, there is a substantial desert area in central Iran but it is never noted in
discourses on Iranian Persian identity. This actually points to the exclusionary projection of
nationalist identity and that it is strongly skewed toward urban areas, especially the capital
Tehran.

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

either resort to using a particular punctuated spelling style, i.e. A.r.a.b.i.a.n (this
is to avoid contributing to the recognition of the name in the Internet content) or
refer to it as bogus, unreal or a fabricated name (Table 5).
Table 5. Referential strategies: Representing the Other
Pronouns

These, This, You, Those

References to country/nation (Other)

Arabs7:
The A.r.a.b.s
The Bedouin
The Taazi worshipers
The camel riders
The strangers
The enemies of Iran
A bunch of newly rich (people)
A bunch of liars
The racist
Other Others:
The Satanic American bastards
The Arabic Obama
The freemason Americans
The foreigners

References to the Arabian Gulf

Arabian Gulf:
The bonus name (8)
The fake name (6)
The camel gulf (4)
The A.r.a.b.i.a.n Gulf
The Lie (3)
The unreal name
The Gulf of grass hopper eaters
The Forged word

Predicational strategies in representations of the Other (Table 6) range from


inaccurate and distorted historical perceptions regarding their habitual practices
to what is perceived as the detrimental impact of Islams conquest of Persia/Iran, e.g.
They have brought in the culture of slavery since the day they set foot in Iran. There
is again the interesting theme of Arabs conspiring with others against Iran, pointing
to a strong converging exclusionary nationalism which essentially functions within
a dichotomy of Iran vs the rest.8 Many of the page users are aware or have been

. We found it unnecessary to be as thorough in listing the derogatory references here.


. Interestingly, the official Islamic Republic discourse constructs a similar dichotomy but
between Islamic Iran vs Others.

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

actively involved in campaigns against some American institutions (sometimes


symbolically sensitive ones, e.g. the US Defence Ministry), which have been flagged
for using the fake name. As such, there is a considerable body of predicational
representation of the Americans as part of the construction of the Other. This is
reinforced by the fact that American officials/government have very cordial relations with most of the Arab officials/kings in the region while being in (open) confrontation with Iranian officials. This theme makes references to negative American
predications both in its own history, e.g. They have killed all their indigenous populations, to the role they are publically believed to have played in the Iran-Iraq war in
favour of Saddam Hussein, e.g. They have provided chemical weapons to Saddam.
Table 6. Predicational strategy, representing the Other
Country/nation

They/Arabs:
have no idea about freedom
have invaded the honour, dignity and culture of Iran
want to loot our cultural heritage
brought in the culture of slavery since they set foot in Iran
used to bury infant girls alive
have been blood thirsty
are used to grabbing everything by force
have been sent all the prophet and Imams but are still evil natured
had better brains than our officials (positive)
cant pronounce P
want to prove to Persians that they also exist
have conspired with Americans against Iran
could not have dared to do this by themselves
Americans:
have changed the name of Persian Gulf
have called Iranians savage and terrorists
have sold chemical weapons to Iraq to kill Iranians
have funded terrorist groups against Iran
have killed all the indigenous populations in America

Apart from the linguistic content, a discourse as in a bundle of semiotic


resources in communicating certain topic plus attitude-can also be represented
through other meaning bearing affordances than linguistic content. This paper
is focused on accounting for the linguistic realisation of the Persian identity discourse however a multimodal analysis of the discourse would be a logical addition
to this research.9 Although, exposure to and communication of discourses have
always had a multimodal nature e.g. in advertising or political communication,

. Work in progress.

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

it could be argued that the new communicative norms of participatory media i.e.
social networking sites have pushed multimodality analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001) much more to the centre of critical discourse analysis. As Barton and
Lee (2013, p.28) argue in understanding language online, we are also trying to
understand how different modes work together to form coherent and meaningful
online texts. In the current case study in social media, these modalities include the
traditional semiotic modes such as visual (posters, cartoons, memes, videos, photos, colour, etc.) and audio modes (songs, music, sound bites, anthems etc.) as well
as specific extra-linguistic modes such as hyperlinking affordance -as some kind of
super-intertextuality option through which all kinds of semiotic resources can be
incorporated within the single text. Another category would be the orthographical
features of the realised linguistic content. The analysed commentaries in this study
reflect an array of choices of typefaces, font sizes, transliterations, spelling strategies, code switching, etc. which are all deployed systematically to serve the main
thrusts of the discourse as well as reflecting personal variations among the users.
Orthographic manoeuvring is a common feature of online language which could
include patterns of using acronyms and initialism (LOL for laugh out loud), word
reductions (gd for good), letter/number homophones (U for you), stylised spelling (Im soooooooo happy!), emoticons () and what they categorise as unconventional/stylised punctuation (!!!!!!!!) (Barton & Lee 2013, p. 5).
The data displays similar trends of the web language, including, messy grammar, code-switching, letter/word combinations, abbreviations, and unconventional punctuation, etc. Occasionally specific orthographic features come to be
used strategically to scaffold the discourse of Persian identity. One of the most
common and strategic stylised forms of using the language in this case is the way
representations of the terms Arabs and Arabic are manipulated. An example of
manipulation is the use of the word Arab as a set of initials in Persian Alphabet
**or the English word A.R.A.B.I.A.N.

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

As the analysis of referential strategy illustrated, there is a strong emphasis


on the name Persian Gulf. This emphasis is mirrored orthographically via the
use of capital letter, denoting a louder and more emphatic expression of the
term.

A similar goal is pursued through the repetition of letters and a stylised spelling of the name Persian Gulf in Pinglish (Persian in Latin alphabet), e.g. khalije
faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars (eqv. Persiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan Gulf).

Conclusion
A case study as such should be considered against the circumstances and (degrees)
of availability of viable traditional venues of the public sphere (e.g. mass media)
for representations, debates and deliberations. It is admittedly problematic and
theoretically risky to generalise a common set of communicative practices for the
whole body of Iranian Facebook users; nevertheless, the Iranian user-community
seems to be acutely aware of a sense of assumed empowerment through social
networking sites. Iranian society is preoccupied with various issues of identity and
representation both within itself at the domestic scale as well as the way it wants
to be viewed internationally. As such, users seem to naturally and efficiently adopt
the new affordance of participatory web to amplify, record, and spread information and social activism that they deem important (Boyd 2011, p. 46). This should
be considered against the backdrop of a representational deficiency in the traditional media discourses (see Sreberny & Khiabany 2010). As such, social use of
participatory media in Iran has come to be viewed as a space to defy and resist the
official discourses (Rahimi & Gheytanchi 2009) and attempts to fill the perceived
gaps in representations.

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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

The findings of this analysis show that a strong Us/Them dichotomisation


(either with us or against us) between a constructed unanimous Us as Persian and
Them as Arabs is systematically substantiated through referential and predicational strategies. Such homogenised bifurcation of the two constructed identities
has been a constitutive and constituting characteristic of Iranians rhetoric regarding current surge of (this kind of) nationalism in identity struggles in Iran. It is
evident through the frequency and the number of references made on the basis of
linguistic choices that Iranians sensitivity to their assumed real (as opposed to the
official) identity as Persians is paramount, and this fuels a mobilisation in deploying discursive resources in the promotion and defence of such identity, including
this campaign for the name Persian Gulf.
The discursive unification of Self as Persians in opposition to the Other serves
a double purpose. While, on the one hand, it strongly opposes the perceived invasion of the Arabic Other, it seeks to construct and promote a Persian identity for
Iranians as a form of (tacit) resistant identity against the official discourses. Putting aside the highly racialised and racists exclusionary imputes of such a nationalist discourse, the identification of Self as Aryans or Persians rather than for
example Shia Muslim which could still serve the purpose of opposing the Sunni
Arab Other, indicates that the Facebook page users are backgrounding Islam in
their Self-Identity and associating it to the two groups of Other: the explicit external Other and the implicit internal Other.
As this case study illustrates, such extraordinary feverish reactionary engagement with the issue is symptomatic of a state of identity crisis among Iranians
(KhosraviNik 2007) which is fuelled by grievances regarding their representation
domestically and through the critical lens of Western media. Socially speaking,
there has been resistance against the officially enforced identities in Iran both
before and after the Revolution. Amidst the lack of sufficient official representations, some layers in Iranian society have now come to view the already exclusionary Persian glorification discourse as an alternative to the official religious identity
discourse, especially in international public spaces. The negative representation
of Iran by the dominant conservative discourses in the West and international
media, influenced by the confrontational politics of its government, has taken a
huge toll on ordinary Iranians who seem to experience a state of confusion and a
clash between their personal identity and the powerful media-enforced ones. The
important note here is that the crisis has led to attempts to construct an identity
which is different from the domestic official discourse but also similarly confrontational, powerful and defiant in opposing the perceived meek and negative representation of Iranian identity by the West. While the Iranian official discourse
propagates an ideological bifurcation of Islamic Iran vs. its enemies, the Persian
identity discourse maintains a line of conflict between Persians vs. its enemies.

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Persian Nationalism, Identity and Anti-Arab Sentiments in Iranian Facebook Discourses

What seems to resonate with the Iranian society is the desire for recognition and
respect which reflects in the infatuation with expression of and aspiration to having
power and defiance which often than not lays the ground for a cultural tendency of
slipping into a Manichean Us/Them bifurcation at the expense of plurality.
It is clear that the bulk of communication analysed here is racist, reductionist
and reactionary. In terms of its contents, strategies and realisations, the discourse
resembles several other cases of right-wing, nationalist aspirations around the
world (Wodak et al. 2013) albeit in a crude and non-nuanced style. In the absence
of viable spaces for healthy discursive engagements and deliberations, identityrelated struggles as such remain nothing but truncated, inarticulate outbursts
of despair and agitation. However, whatever the justifications and contexts may
be, such a turn to extreme exclusionary nationalism in social discourses in Iran
would render (or add to) a fertile ground for the rise of populist, exclusionary and
authoritarian discourses which would embed presuppositions of superiority and
exceptionalism in one way or another (Wodak et al. 2013).

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2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company


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Majid KhosraviNik & Mahrou Zia

Authors addresses
Majid KhosraviNik
Armstrong Building,
Media & Cultural Studies,
School of Arts and Cultures,
University of Newcastle,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK

Mahrou Zia
Department of Sociology
Bowland North
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK
LA1 4YT

majid.khosravinik@newcastle.ac.uk.

m.ziaghazvini1@lancaster.ac.uk

About the authors


Majid KhosraviNik is a lecturer in Media and Discourse Studies at Newcastle University, UK.
He is interested in theory, methods and application of critical discourse studies in a range of
topics and media discourses including the intersection of discourse and (national/ethnic/group)
identity in mass and new digital media. For the past few years, he has been working and publishing on application of CDA on Web 2.0 environments such as e.g. social media. He sits on the
board of a number of international journals and is a co-founder of Newcastle Discourse Group.
His co-edited book, Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse (with Ruth Wodak
and Brigitte Mral), was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2013. He is currently finalising
a book manuscript on Iranian and British press discourses regarding Irans nuclear programme.
Mahrou Zia is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, United
Kingdom, from where she also received her MA in Sociological Research. Prior to this she
also successfully studied for an MSc. in Science and Technology Studies from the University
of Edinburgh. She is interested in the intersection of digital technologies and ICT use among
social agents, and how these technologies challenge their actions and routines and brings about
changes in their everyday lives. Her Ph.D. aims to contribute to scholarship in interdisciplinary
research on Information and Communications Technologies in transnational contexts of e.g.
ICT4D. She is specifically focusing on ICT use (e.g. mobile phones, and internet) and its impact
on contemporary religious practices.

2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company


All rights reserved

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