A Critical Discourse Analysis of Iranian Sport Media: A Case Study

Sport media can go beyond reflecting sport events and shape and direct public opinions. However, few, if any, studies have addressed this area in an Iranian context. Therefore, the present study sought to critically analyze Iranian sport media texts by focusing on a particular subject. To do so, a corpus of sampled texts, which reflected official and semi-official stances on the two Iranian footballers’ act of playing against an Israeli team, was analyzed using Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. The findings of the study indicated how speakers use linguistic means to highlight the desired points of view, establish power relations, and control readers’ mind and thinking. The findings also revealed that sport media can be used to strengthen dominant ideologies already legitimatized and approved by sportspeople.