Project description
Radio, propaganda and Islam in modern Iran
During World War II and the early Cold War, radio became a tool for political propaganda and helped reshape the public role of Islam in Iran. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RADPUB project examines how Persian-language radio networks, first developed through Nazi foreign policy, transformed religious broadcasting in Pahlavi Iran between 1939 and 1957. It studies the influence of the Radio Berlin Persian Service, the BBC Persian Service and Radio Tehran as well as key figures such as Bahram Shahrokh. Using archival sources, RADPUB offers the first cultural history of Islam and radio broadcasting in Iran. Ultimately, it provides important insights into the historical relationship between media, political power and Islam in the modern Middle East.
Objective
"This project examines how early Persian-language radio networks emerged from Nazi foreign policy during World War II and transformed the public presence of Islam in Pahlavi Iran between 1939 and 1957. Special attention is given to the Radio Berlin Persian Service (1939–1945), which pioneered broadcasting religious content in Persian, merged with racist, antisemitic, and anti-imperialist propaganda. Its nationwide reception strongly resonated with Iranian clerics, prompting the BBC to establish its own Persian Service in 1940, and directly influencing the development of Radio Tehran (1940–1957), where, by the early 1950s, religious programming occupied more airtime than other content. Radio broadcasting thus became a powerful medium for transforming the public practices, perceptions, and prominence of Islam in modern Iran.
The project focuses on three figures who embodied this transformation: Bahram Shahrokh, Radio Berlin's Persian-speaking announcer and Iran’s propaganda chief in the post-WWII years; Hosayn-Ali Rashed, whose ""radio religious speeches"" promoted a progressive style of Muslim piety; and Mohammad Taqi Falsafi, whose emotive live broadcasts from Tehran's Shah Mosque promoted a populist piety that culminated in the 1955 anti-Baha’i campaign. RADPUB argues that the emergence of the new genre of radio religious speech in Persian was key to the consolidation of Shi’a clerical authority – with its different shades of piety – and the marginalisation of religious minorities. In the absence of surviving audio archives, RADPUB draws on Persian, German, and English sources, including previously untapped or understudied intelligence transcripts, state files, and press coverage. Combining cultural-historical analysis with digital humanities methods, the project offers the first cultural history of Islam and radio broadcasting in Iran. It is positioned at the intersection of contemporary Iranian history, media history of religion, and WWII propaganda studies."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions islam
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
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