Doctors’ Orders vs. Politicians’ Bafflegab: Analysis of Iranian President’s and Deputy Health Minister’s Speeches on the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

This study adopted a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the potential ideological differences between the Iranian President and Deputy Health Minister (DHM) in the representation of issues related to the Coronavirus Pandemic. The analysis was based on the meeting of the national task force against Coronavirus chaired by President Rouhani, held in 2020, and DHM’s five press conferences and interviews during the same period. By integrating insights from van Dijk’s model (2005), the findings revealed that the President’s speech on the Coronavirus Pandemic was highly ideological. However, the DHM had a tendency to use more objective and neutral words in the descriptions of the COVID-19 and express his views in a transparent way. The findings of this study are significant in raising the public’s awareness of the manipulative function of the language used by politicians to express political ideologies, even on a public health issue such as the Coronavirus Pandemic.