The Media of Iran are privately and publicly owned but subject to the control of the government. A special court has authority to monitor the print media and may suspend publication or revoke the licenses of papers or journals that a jury finds guilty of publishing antireligious material, slander, or information detrimental to the national interest. Since the late 1990s, the court has shut down many pro-reform newspapers and other periodicals.
Most Iranian newspapers are published in Persian, but newspapers in English and other languages also exist. The most widely circulated periodicals are based in Tehran. Popular daily and weekly newspapers include Ettelaat, Kayhan and Resalat. Iran Daily and Tehran Times are both English language papers.
A number of foreign broadcasts into the country exist, including Persian language programmes from Kol Israel and Radio Farda; however, these broadcasts tend to encounter occasional jamming. The government engages in one of the world's largest and most strict censorship programs to limit 'bad influences' seen in western culture, and anything seen as divergent from the country's strict religious regulations. The majority of Iranians -- upwards of 80 percent -- get their news from government-owned media.
Iranian media include:
- Iranian News Agencies
- Iranian Newspapers
- Iranian Blogs
- Iranian magazines
- Iranian TV stations
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“The media have just buried the last yuppie, a pathetic creature who had not heard the news that the great pendulum of public conciousness has just swung from Greed to Compassion and from Tex-Mex to meatballs.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)