The Reflections of the Twelve-Day War in the State News Agencies TASS and IRNA

Abstract

This study aims to reveal how the conflict between Israel and Iran, known in the literature as the Twelve-Day War, was reflected in the state news agencies of the two allied states, Russia and Iran. On June 13, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu launched a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure, and Iran responded with Operation Real Promise 3. The US, siding with Israel, played a significant role in the Iranian attack. Given Russia's stance on these conflicts, given its cooperation with Iran in the nuclear field, this study examines the Russian and Iranian state news agencies TASS and IRNA, analyzing their reporting on the conflict and the political understanding behind it. Indeed, media influences global political processes and reveals its political and ideological orientations. Therefore, the research questions are: Do the TASS and IRNA state news agencies engage in political analysis? What political understanding do they use to construct their news coverage? The news reports were analyzed using a qualitative approach and critical discourse analysis techniques. The analysis was conducted within the framework of Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis model. Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis is based on micro and macro levels. At the micro level, word choices, sentence structures, causal relationships between sentences, and rhetoric are examined, while at the macro level, thematic and schematic analysis is applied. As a result, considering that the news agencies taken as a sample are state news agencies, it is possible to conclude that states use the media in their own political sphere. The aim of the media goes beyond informing the masses and is based on manipulating them. The media, by conducting political discourse analysis, presents an approach to war and constructs news for each country's own politics. This construction is done under the umbrella of ideology. The messages given in the media unite the masses against the enemy and the other, and reality is reconstructed in the news.