Iran's Media Landscape: Law, policy and media freedom

Iran as a very ancient country is experiencing a different kind of media policy that is
based on freedom, religion and social responsibility. A general look at the media in Iran
shows that during the period after the Islamic Revolution considerable development had
taken place in the area of media freedom. A wide range of press media is currently
available in Iran. Because of high attentions to the radio and TV as a national university,
it remains the most popular medium. In terms of online media, Iran is one of few
countries in the world where the new form of journalism - online journalism - and a new
type of media – online only news organizations - have received serious attention and
development in the last 9 years. Iran has the largest number of blogs in the world after
China and the online internet media in Iran is going to be as a mass media. However,
while the Iranian press has displayed great diversity and vibrancy, some basic legal
safeguards for media freedom are still lacking. After 30 years of Islamic Revolution, the
press remains vulnerable. In spite of a lot of improvement in media legislation, media
freedom is still an issue and there are several intermixed legal and educational obstacles
that directly or indirectly damage the development of the media freedom. These obstacles
are includes; decreasing professional standards of journalism, the complexity of new
media and the lack of updating media legislation, the limitation or monopoly of media
publication, the independence of the Judiciary, the lack of clear definition of “Media
offense” and “Media court” in the law, and unbalanced distribution of government
subsidies to the press. For further development and toward desirable climate for media
freedom in Iran, a lot of decisions need to be made to address these obstacles, specially in
terms of legislation and Education of Journalists.